


Keep Yourself Alive

by Jlocked, The_Lady_of_Purpletown



Series: Ineffable Fools [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Discorporation (Good Omens), Fluff, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Heaven, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Illnesses, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Loss, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other, Queen - Freeform, Sick Character, Sick Fic, Undercover, physical deterioration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2020-06-09 13:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 42,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19476817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jlocked/pseuds/Jlocked, https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lady_of_Purpletown/pseuds/The_Lady_of_Purpletown
Summary: The Apocalypse didn’t happen, and Aziraphale and Crowley's respective Offices have been dealt with. For now. This should be a time for celebration and enjoying their life on Earth. But it seems Heaven has a different Plan for Aziraphale, and Crowley might not be able to solve this.





	1. Don’t Stop Me Now

Aziraphale’s back hurt as he stood up from where he’d been reading at his desk for the past four hours. It was only a small ache, but it startled him so much that he almost fell over. He was an _Angel_. He didn’t get _aches_. His body functioned perfectly at all times, exactly the way he needed in any given situation.

Yet here he was, reflexively pressing a hand to his lumbar vertebrae. Rubbing didn’t do any good, but moving his hips in a rather undignified way did seem to click things back in place. He straightened up, relieved. Only to press a hand to his neck as it twinged. Pain bloomed through the side of his upper body and his joints cracked loudly as he tilted his head.

...

“Do you ever feel as if your corporeal vessel is… wearing down?” he asked that evening, when Crowley had draped himself over one of his chairs with a glass of wine.

"Are you implying that I cannot hold my liquor?" The demon raised a disdainful eyebrow above his glasses.

"No! Well, I mean..." Aziraphale allowed himself a small smile. "That too, perhaps. But, you know, in general. We've had these bodies for a long time now, haven't we?"

"I guess." Crowley looked himself up and down. "I've had no complaints so far."

"You never feel any... pain?" Aziraphale asked, studying Crowley's face to detect if he was going to evade the question.

"Sure I do." Crowley chuckled. "Holy ground burns like... well... Hell!"

Aziraphale winced, pushing away the feeling of guilt at the memory. "Yes, but… I mean when you're not doing anything in particular. Just like a human would get a headache, or a muscle ache, or anything like that."

"Of course not. I'm a demon."

"I see." Aziraphale stared at his own glass of wine for a long moment, but then snapped out of his musings. "You _are_ a demon. Did you do something when you were using my body? Something that could give me... that could cause sore muscles?"

Crowley spat out his wine. "Like what?!"

Aziraphale shrugged. "I don't know. Something demonic? A special kind of... dance?"

"Speaking of dancing..." Crowley's frown melted into a smirk. "I've heard rumours..."

…

The ensuing conversation distracted Aziraphale sufficiently to forget about the strange pain. However, two days later, as he went out for an afternoon walk in the park and some ice cream—hoping, just a little, that Crowley might have had the same idea—he was disappointed not only by his friend’s absence, but also by the fact that his right hip started hurting before he was even halfway back to his bookshop.

These things had never happened before. Was his vessel really starting to wear down after all this time? Or was it something else? Something that had happened while they were working to prevent Armageddon, something he’d completely failed to notice at the time?

He found himself flopping onto his sofa as soon as he came home, rubbing the sore hip, but once the pain abided he went in search of a mirror. There _were_ some wrinkles on his face, weren’t there? But those had always been there. They were supposed to make him look respectable. And he’d never really had any reason to _count_ them. Did humans do that, in order to keep track before they started buying all those fancy creams and serums? Probably not; ‘looking old’ was, no doubt, as arbitrary as any other of their appearance-based judgements. 

And it didn’t do _them_ any good to give it too much thought, either. Aziraphale figured a good meal would get him back on track, feeling absolutely tickety-boo. It was rather a nice idea anyway. So he took a deep breath, turned away from the mirror, and made his way to the small charming Chinese restaurant not far from his shop.

He ordered wontons for starters and then the duck, which was always particularly delicious here. Juicy and perfectly balanced between savoury and sweet. 

But as the wontons arrived, his appetite seemed to drain away. He _wanted_ to eat them, they smelled great, but whenever he took a bite it felt as if he was chewing on cardboard. 

Perhaps his body was so filled with anticipation for the duck that it didn’t want to spend time on anything else, then—though that would definitely be a first. However, he wished he had cancelled his order as soon as they put the main course on the table. The wonderful aromas made him _queasy_. The very thought of lifting his fork to his lips made his throat constrict.

Now he was _really_ worried.

And it was such a horrible waste. Aziraphale apologised profusely as he got up and paid for the still-steaming dish, hoping the staff could eat it instead. 

The waiter just smiled at him sympathetically. “You must be coming down with something.”

And indeed, he must, but he really, _really_ shouldn’t be.

…

The next morning, Aziraphale was relieved to find he could eat breakfast. He kept the shop closed and searched his books for any mention of illnesses in celestial beings until long past lunchtime. He even bothered taking out his glasses, even though no one could see him. It was as if they did make the letters a little sharper today, as if they slowed down the blooming of the faint headache that…

Hang on. A _headache_ now?

This was really getting ridiculous.

…

The headache got so bad that he found himself standing in line at Boots. He honestly had no idea if a painkiller would even work on him, but if he was experiencing human pains, surely what he needed was a human cure? Even if it only alleviated the throbbing in his temples a tiny bit, he’d be grateful.

What would not help, at all, would be the door opening behind him and _Gabriel_ walking in. So of course that was exactly what happened.

“Aziraphale,” he said, fake salesman-smile firmly in place. To think this guy was an angel, and someone like Crowley was a demon…

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale replied coolly.

“Studying human medicine, then? Surely nothing is _wrong_?”

Aziraphale frowned. “Why are _you_ here?”

“Oh, just checking in on you. You know, now that you’re not really… _affiliated_ with Heaven anymore… I happened to see you enter this establishment just now, so I wondered, what would a fellow angel ever need a pharmacy for?”

 _Definitely_ not making his headache any better. Aziraphale shrugged. “They’ve got all kinds of things here. Look, lozenges. They’ve got the strawberry ones!”

“I see. So you’re not _ill_? Not in _pain_?”

Aziraphale studied him for a moment. “Why? Are you?” Was this happening to other angels as well?

“Of course not.” Gabriel grinned. “We angels don’t experience pain, am I right? You’d have to have behaved very… _un-angelic_ to be punished like that.”

Aziraphale barely suppressed a gasp. Surely he didn’t mean…

“How can I help you, sir?” the young pharmacist enquired in a politely cheerful voice. 

Aziraphale paused, glancing at Gabriel from the corner of his eye.

“I… I would like to buy a packet of condoms.” He beamed at the young woman.

To his disappointment, that statement didn’t make Gabriel disappear.

“Clever,” the angel commented. “Making the humans think you’re one of them.”

Aziraphale put as much derision into his expression as he was able to. “Oh no. That’s not what’s happening at all.”

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow. “No?”

“No. I intend to _use_ them.”

For a moment Gabriel froze, and then he scoffed and turned around, no doubt on his way to report to Head Office that Aziraphale _definitely_ couldn’t be saved.

…

So… Pain as punishment. How very human. What did it mean, exactly? Had Head Office just flicked on the “ageing” button for Aziraphale’s vessel, or was it something more? Something like a curse? That honestly sounded more like the kind of thing Crowley’s side—well, no, no longer Crowley’s side—the kind of thing _Hell_ would come up with. Maybe Aziraphale should ask him about it? But no, that would be silly. It was probably nothing. Heaven was just trying to scare Aziraphale after ‘he’ had given them a fright stepping into the Hellfire. And, with the aid of a little ibuprofen, those small aches passed quickly. It was really nothing to make a fuss about.


	2. Time Waits for No One

“Why, in Heaven’s name, would you want to meet up in a tube station?” Aziraphale looked around St Paul’s station and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Just a second," Crowley muttered dismissively as he checked his watch. "Here we go!" He grinned gleefully as a train pulled up to the packed platform and opened its doors only to reveal that it was already packed thrice beyond capacity. Crowley hummed along with the cries and groans of innumerable harrowed commuters. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Aziraphale stared in horror. "You don't expect us to... to _join_ them, do you?"

Crowley chuckled. "No, we'll take the next one."

Somehow the train absorbed the crowd and rattled off. Exactly 36 seconds later, its successor sighed to a halt invitingly, revealing a pristinely empty carriage. "After you." Crowley's small bow was ambiguously playful.

"That... How... Why didn't some of those people just _wait_?" Aziraphale asked as he sat down.

"They're humans?" Crowley suggested, draping himself over several seats across from Aziraphale. "So... You wanted to see me?"

"Oh, well, I was wondering what you were up to. It's been more than a week since..." Aziraphale gestured with his hands. "All that. _Not_ the end of the world. So I was curious how you were spending your days if you didn't really have to work anymore, but... Here we are, in an empty train that you seem rather proud of."

"Oh, I..." Crowley somehow shrugged with his whole body. "I'd already had it planned out... before, y'know. Seemed a pity to let it go to waste. Besides..." He flung out his arms in a very ringmastery fashion. "This is not work. This is art!"

Aziraphale blinked, but couldn't help a smile spreading across his face as he saw how happy his friend looked. "Congratulations, my dear."

Crowley stood up and took a bow. "Thank you, thank you." He shifted over to sit next to Aziraphale. "But seriously, what's up? Are the guys upstairs bothering you already?"

Aziraphale stiffened. "No. Why would you think that? They don't care about me anymore."

"Then what's the matter? Your favourite sushi place changed the menu? Somebody tried to buy one of your books?"

"No! Nothing's the matter. Everything is just fine. Does there really need to be a reason why I want to see my _friend_?"

"You just sounded a bit urgent when you called. Like you were desperate for more than my company." Crowley raised an only slightly suggestive eyebrow.

"I bought condoms the other day," Aziraphale blurted out.

"You what?" Crowley's voice jumped several octaves.

"Not... for the obvious reason," he explained quickly, wishing he hadn't run his mouth. He really couldn't tell Crowley that it was because Gabriel had been behind him, because that would give it all away. But if there was anything Aziraphale had learned from his side, it was how to avoid lying by tiptoeing around the truth. "I needed to look normal to someone behind me in the queue."

"And _that_ was you solution?" Crowley snorted.

"Yes. Anyway, I've got them now, so I thought that maybe you wanted..."

The sound that escaped Crowley, as he gaped at Aziraphale, was not unlike what you might get if you let the air out of a balloon very slowly.

Aziraphale stopped and frowned. "Are you all right, dear? Surely _you_ are not shocked by the mention of a condom."

Crowley closed his mouth and swallowed hard. "Why would you think that I...?"

"Oh look, more people are getting on here!" Aziraphale said, pointing at the doors as they stopped in Holborn station. "Was that part of your plan? Will this train fill up just as much as the last?"

"Yes, and then it'll get stuck between Bond Street and Marble Arch for a couple of hours. We better get off here." Crowley jumped to his feet.

Aziraphale followed him out. "So don't you do parties anymore?" he asked once they were on the escalators.

"What do parties have to do with anything?"

"Balloons!" Aziraphale laughed. "I thought you might want the... my _purchase_ for that. I especially got the coloured ones!"

"They're not balloons, angel. They're shaped all..." Crowley gesticulated with his hands, nearly knocking over a couple of confused tourists. "Wrong!" He snapped his fingers and two turnstiles flipped open to let them out. "Ice cream?"

"Yes please! And I do know what they look like. I may have had a hand in inventing them, though I obviously never reported to Head Office about that. They'd probably have mixed feelings about it."

"Why am I not surprised?"

…

Even after they'd finished their ice creams, they just kept wandering aimlessly around the city, neither of them in any particular hurry to be home. But suddenly a sharp pain bloomed in Aziraphale's side.

"Oh!" he gasped, pressing a hand to his abdomen. It was as if he was being stabbed by an invisible knife.

"What?" Crowley spun around. "Are they coming for us?"

"No, I..." Aziraphale wheezed and straightened up. "It's nothing," he said through clenched teeth.

"It's clearly not nothing." Crowley frowned. "Talk to me, angel. What happened?"

"Nothing happened!" Aziraphale took a deep breath. "It's just a stitch in my side. Happens all the time."

"Not to us!" 

“It’s only human,” Aziraphale soothed.

Crowley stomped his foot. "We're. Not. Humans!"

"We are a bit now, aren't we? Not associated with either side anymore... It was bound to happen eventually." Aziraphale straightened his waistcoat and started walking again.

Crowley caught up to him with two long strides. "So what I'm hearing is that this is not the first time?"

"My dear, it really is nothing to worry about. Mortals get aches all the time and it's not killing them! A little pain isn't going to harm _me_."

"But you're _not_ mortal. You're not supposed to be feeling any kind of pain." Crowley gripped his arm and made him stop. "Angel... are you okay?"

"Yes. I've just told you so." Aziraphale shook his arm loose. "Let's just continue our walk."

Crowley didn't budge. "What else?" he asked. "What other pain have you felt?"

"Nothing serious. Most humans would probably laugh in my face for even noticing. Come on, I've got a nice bottle waiting at home." Aziraphale pressed his elbow against his side so the ache was easier to ignore and picked up his pace.

"Nope." With an arm around Aziraphale's shoulders, Crowley turned him around and marched him up a side street. "My place is closer. I'll make you some tea."

Aziraphale gave him a look. "Do you even _own_ tea?"

Crowley snapped his fingers. "... yes."

Aziraphale felt like he really should call him out for miracling tea, but he couldn't suppress a fond smile. "Fine. Must be the first time in six millennia that I hear you say no to an alcoholic drink."

" _I'm_ not drinking the tea." Crowley's smirk seemed a little forced.

"Well now, then you might as well have miracled cocoa," Aziraphale teased.

"Cocoa is for bad dreams, tea is for ouchies," Crowley admonished. "Don't you know anything?"

"Sorry, Nanny." Aziraphale decided not to point out that Crowley's arm was still around his shoulders.


	3. Under Pressure

Once he had the angel safely deposited on the sofa, Crowley went to fetch the tea waiting on a neatly done-up tray in his unused kitchen. Checking if his guest was looking, he quickly snapped his fingers as quietly as possible. He huffed and rearranged the plate of biscuits, examined the result and then picked up the tray, carrying it as casually as possible back to the lounge.

"Feeling better?" he asked as he put it on the coffee table.

"Yes, thank you, dear." Aziraphale gave him a smile, but it was only a moment before he was eyeing the biscuits. "I really just needed to sit down to make it go away, apparently."

"You should still drink your tea." Crowley poured a cup. "Honey?"

"Oh! Don't mind if I do. Thank you, dear." It earned Crowley another of those soft smiles. "See... It's only fair, really. That I should feel humans' pain as well as their pleasure."

"So you're paying the price for overindulgence?"

Aziraphale sipped the cup and hummed, closing his eyes. "It would make sense."

"In that case..." The biscuits disappeared.

"Hey!" Aziraphale stared at him in shock. "The point is that I can enjoy the pleasures too!"

"No gain, no pain." Crowley shrugged, camouflaging what might have been a fond smile as a mocking smirk. "If you stop indulging in all those... pleasures... maybe the pain will go away."

Aziraphale pouted. "It's already gone. This really is unnecessary." Crowley couldn't help but note that he was holding onto his teacup with both hands, as if afraid it might vanish, too.

"Oh?" Crowley held out a single biscuit. "Here, then."

"Ah." Aziraphale's smile bloomed as he took it. "A good person, indeed."

"There are conditions," Crowley said.

"Conditions to you being a good person?" Aziraphale asked, before taking a bite.

"Conditions to you having that biscuit." This time the smirk was genuine. The angel was just too easy.

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow and swallowed before he asked: "What kind of conditions?"

"No more hiding these things from me," Crowley said, using his stern tone. "If you're in pain, you let me know. I..." He hesitated. "I mean, if it's happening to you, it might be my turn next."

Aziraphale hesitated, looking at his biscuit. "But... it will only make you worry needlessly, Crowley. It's not like you can do anything _about_ it."

"I don't _worry_." Crowley pulled himself up to his full height. "I just want to be prepared. In fact... I think I better keep an eye on you. See if I can find out exactly what's happening."

Aziraphale set down the biscuit and the cup on a side table that hadn't been there a moment before. "I can't let you. What if it's dangerous to be near me right now?" He suddenly looked startled and stood up. "I think I should go."

"Nope." Crowley held up a warning hand. "You're not running away from me. Not after what we've been through."

"But..." Aziraphale took a deep breath and then deflated. "I haven't told you everything yet."

"Of course." Crowley gestured for the angel to sit back down.

He obeyed, clearly uncomfortable. “I saw Gabriel yesterday,” he said, looking deeply unhappy.

"Saw him?" Crowley summoned a chair and settled, never taking his eyes off Aziraphale. "As in... spotted him?"

"He was... behind me in line at the chemist’s." Aziraphale bit his lip and barely met Crowley's eyes. "When I was going to buy painkillers."

Crowley felt a muscle in his cheek twitch. "But instead you got..." He couldn't help but snigger a little. "Did he appreciate that?"

The corners of Aziraphale’s mouth curled. “He _did_ leave...”

"I can imagine. Did he say anything? Before bolting?"

"Yes." Aziraphale sighed. "He suggested that he knew why I was there. And that suffering would be a fit punishment for... not being a good angel." He reached out for the cup and took a large gulp of tea. "I'm so stupid. Until just now, I hadn't realised that would mean it's dangerous to be seen with me. What if they go after your body as well?"

"I'm out of their jurisdiction." Crowley felt the all-too-familiar anger start to boil inside him and jumped to his feet. He had to pace or he'd explode. "Wasn't it enough trying to execute you?"

"Not after I got away, I suppose." Aziraphale put down his empty cup and winced as he straightened again. "I don't know how far they are going to take this."

"Not far, because we won't let them," Crowley said firmly. "Now tell me, did you manage to buy some painkillers too?"

…

It took a lot of convincing, a rather exquisite victoria sponge and some shots of liquor that might have been a bit stronger than Crowley let on, but shortly after midnight Aziraphale finally agreed to stay at the flat, ‘at least until the morning’, so Crowley could keep an eye on him in case further afflictions arose.

Crowley had only offered Aziraphale the use of his bed as a matter of courtesy and was unsettled when the angel thanked him and promptly passed out.

Crowley spent the remainder of the night browsing the internet for both causes and possible solutions to his angel’s quandary. But, alas, as the first rays of sunlight stabbed across the room, causing Aziraphale to stir, he was no closer to an answer.

He slapped on his brightest smile and sauntered over to the bed, perching on the end. “Good morning, Starshine,” he lilted.

“ _Starshine_?” Aziraphale blinked a few times and then pushed himself up on his elbows, squinting at Crowley.

“Yeah, you know… The sun says hello…” Crowley tried humming a few bars, but it kind of fizzled when he saw the confusion spreading across Aziraphale’s face.

“Are you all right?” Aziraphale winced. “What _happened_?”

“You fell asleep?” Crowley scooted closer and reached out to feel Aziraphale’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Awful! I’ve got a splitting headache and the most _foul_ taste in my mouth.” Aziraphale stuck out his tongue, but going by his grimace, that didn’t bring him any relief. He quickly closed his mouth again.

"Hang on." Crowley scrambled to procure the painkillers, a large glass of water and some minty chewing gum he'd once bought off a scruffy looking vendor in Vauxhall as part of a long-forgotten scheme. "Here you go," he said, offering it all to the angel.

"Thank you." Aziraphale swallowed a painkiller and chugged the water so fast he started coughing.

"Bloody hell!" Crowley leapt to Aziraphale's side. What was he supposed to do? Thump his back? He'd seen humans do it, but it looked so... violent.

"It's okay!" Aziraphale pushed the glass into Crowley's hands and then coughed some more, pressing a hand against his forehead.

"It's not okay!" Crowley wanted to punch something. Preferably Gabriel. "Angels don't choke. Or ache!" He glared menacingly at the nearest pothos.

"In that case," Aziraphale said, a little hoarsely, "I'm afraid we'll have to conclude I'm no longer an angel."

"What? Oh..." Crowley ran his free hand through his hair. "Does that mean you've also lost your... abilities?"

“I don’t think so…” Aziraphale frowned and turned towards the pot holding the calla lilies. “Go on then,” he told them gently, and a moment later several large, white flowers appeared. “Looks like that’s still working,” he said, turning to Crowley with a smile.

Crowley crossed his arms. "Right. So how about you try that on yourself?" He made a mental note to take the traitor to task later.

Aziraphale smiled. "I'm sure I'd look lovely with lilies in my hair."

"You're hilarious!" Crowley stalked out of the bedroom in search of something to dismember.


	4. The Show Must Go On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the kind comments! Waking up to several new messages at once felt like a particularly exciting Christmas morning. <3

Aziraphale felt a little guilty about teasing Crowley, but rather than going after him to apologise, he sank back onto the bed. His head throbbed at the change in position, making him wince. The thing was, miracles on his own vessel always felt a bit… _wrong_. Not just because they were selfish, but because the change would never feel quite _real_ if he was the one bringing it about. He might end up feeling better, but wouldn’t think he _should_ , and therefore feel bad in a different way.

Still, if it made this particular headache pass, it would be worth it. He focused, and the pounding in his head dissolved… and came crashing back. Trying to suppress a whine, he threw the pillow over his head. If he’d been human and didn’t know any better, he’d have come close to calling this _hell_.

After about half an hour, the painkiller finally kicked in and Aziraphale started considering his options for the day. He really wanted to go to the bookshop, to make his day as normal as possible. Perhaps he’d even go with more traditional opening hours than usual, although that meant he’d have to leave soon. He carefully got up, fixed his clothes and went in search for Crowley.

It wasn’t very hard to find him. He just had to follow the shouting.

"What do you mean you've burned it!?" Crowley had torn off his glasses and his eyes were bulging with rage as he squeezed the phone so tight it was a wonder it hadn't shattered yet. "It might have had the... the Answer!"

Aziraphale tentatively stepped closer. "Now, dear, I'm sure there's no reason to get this worked up..."

As Crowley saw him, he dropped the poor phone. "What happened to you?"

Aziraphale frowned. "What do you mean? I'm feeling much better."

"Your... your eye..." Crowley took a hesitant step towards him, paused and then gestured towards the bathroom. "Mirror," he said. "Go look."

"Oh," Aziraphale said as he saw himself in the mirror. Not only did he look rumpled and drowsy from lying on the bed, his right eye was completely bloodshot. He blinked a few times. It _was_ quite itchy, but he hadn't paid it much notice earlier, thinking his dry eyes were just part of the terrible hangover.

"It looks a lot worse than it is," he told Crowley, stepping out of the bathroom again. "Did your telephone survive that fall, dear?"

Crowley nudged the offending device with his foot. "Don't think so. Why?”

"Whoever was on the other end of that call must have heard quite a crash." Aziraphale bent to pick up the phone and smoothed his hand over the side. "There, all better."

Crowley slapped it out of his hand. "Would you stop wasting energy on frivolous things?!"

Aziraphale took a step back and straightened to his full height, looking into Crowley's eyes. "I thought we were done with notes from the Office about frivolous miracles, and now _you're_ going to start?"

Crowley wilted. "I... uhm... I... I'm just worried about you."

"I know. But you don't have to take it out on the telephone." Aziraphale bent to pick it up and handed it to Crowley, his fingers lingering against Crowley's. "My miracles aren't going to make me any worse. Or better. I tried..."

Crowley's pout was more than a little contrite. "Do you think a doctor could help? With that?" He gestured at his eye.

"Perhaps." Aziraphale retracted his hand and tugged his waistcoat down. "If it hasn't improved in a few hours, I'll visit one. But I should go and open the bookshop soon."

"No way!" Crowley crossed his arms and shook his head. "You're staying here, where I can keep an eye on you."

Aziraphale sighed. "Do you want us to just sit here and worry all day?"

"Yes?" Crowley's answer lacked conviction.

"I doubt that would be helpful, my dear." Aziraphale turned away. "You can come with me if you want."

…

Aziraphale settled down in the most comfortable chair in his shop with a pot of tea and a beautifully illustrated 16th-century botanical encyclopaedia. It would have made for a perfectly peaceful morning if it hadn’t been for a certain demon pacing the room like an impatient panther with slinkies for legs. In the end, Aziraphale miracled him a stiff drink and managed to tune him out until the shop bell rang.

He looked up, irritated. The paragraph on mistletoe really was enthralling, but he’d better go and keep an eye on his visitor.

Only as he was getting up from his chair did he realise that something was off. The constant movement in the corner of his eye had stalled. As Aziraphale looked up, he found Crowley looking like he’d frozen on the spot, looking at the shop door in horror.

_Oh._

Well, at least it wasn’t Gabriel himself, but Aziraphale highly doubted a visit from Sandalphon could turn into a pleasant occasion. He didn’t recognise the second angel. She was equally stocky as Sandalphon, wearing teal trousers, a dark blue waistcoat, and a grey jacket and tie on a white shirt. For a fraction of a moment, Aziraphale thought she looked friendly, but then she spotted Crowley and frowned.

“Aziraphale!” Sandalphon sing-songed. “We’ve come to visit!”

“Ah, yes, I noticed.” Aziraphale suppressed a wince as he moved around the corner so they could see him as well. “Hello. We haven’t met, have we?” He held out his hand to the other angel, hoping to at least delay Sandalphon a little.

She looked him up and down and put her hands in her pockets. “I’ve seen you.” After an uncomfortable pause, she added: “Anpiel.”

“Ah. Hello. Very nice to meet you.” Aziraphale smiled and clutched his own right hand with his left. “I’m Aziraphale. Welcome to my bookshop. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Oh, it’s just a social visit.” Sandalphon grinned. “That’s what _humans_ do, right? And you like them, so we thought, why not?”

“Ah.” Aziraphale glanced at Crowley, who still wasn’t moving. “I see. Would you… like a drink?”

“Oh, Heaven, no! We wouldn’t _really_ want to become human.” Sandalphon laughed. “No, no, we came to pop the question.”

Crowley seemed to tense fractionally.

“Which question, exactly, would that be?” Aziraphale enquired politely.

“How _are_ you?” Sandalphon blinked up at him in what he surely thought was a friendly manner.

“I’m fine. As I told Gabriel the day before yesterday.” Aziraphale frowned slightly. “Is something the matter? You all seem frightfully worried about my health.”

“Oh, no, of course not! Nothing the matter. No.” Sandalphon was grinning again.

“Do you actually sell these?” Anpiel had wandered over to one of the shelves and picked up a first edition of Dr. Karl Russ’ _The Speaking Parrots_.

“ _No_ ,” Aziraphale snapped, rushing over to her. “And these are only to be handled with gloves!”

“It’s not like we have _acidic fingers_ ,” Sandalphon said, rolling his eyes.

“All the same! Please.” Aziraphale carefully took the book out of Anpiel’s hands and examined it for damage.

“It would be quite an inheritance, hmm? All those books?” Sandalphon remarked, looking around at the shelves. “Will you be leaving them to the demon when you’re gone?”

A lump of ice formed in Aziraphale’s stomach and he turned towards Sandalphon completely. Deep down, part of him was ready to whack the valuable book over Sandalphon’s head, damages and grease be damned. “ _Why_ would I be _gone_?”

Sandalphon shrugged. “You know. No reason. But bodies as human as yours are… finite.”

Aziraphale really, really didn’t want to look at Crowley now. He wished he could turn back time and keep him from hearing Sandalphon’s words. But before anything could happen, the doorbell rang again.

“Mr Fell! Oh, you’ve got customers.” The elderly woman in the colourful sari smiled kindly at everyone in turn, apparently oblivious to the tension. “I can come back later if it suits you better, Mr Fell.”

“No, don’t worry, Professor Gurmani. These people were just leaving.” Aziraphale shot Sandalphon and Anpiel a tight smile.

Sandalphon replied with an exaggerated wink, leaving only a tiny slit of his other eye visible. “See you in Heaven!”

Anpiel looked around the bookshop one more time with mild interest, and then followed the other angel out.

Aziraphale took a deep breath and almost glanced at Crowley. Almost, because… nope. He couldn't do this now.

"How can I help you, Professor?"

“Ah, I was wondering if I could have a look at your copy of _La Critique de l'École des Femmes_. But really, if this is a bad time…” Professor Gurmani looked pointedly past Aziraphale’s shoulder at Crowley.

“Don’t worry. This is my friend, Crowley. Crowley, meet Professor Gurmani. She teaches Theatre History at Birkbeck College.”

Professor Gurmani looked right back at Aziraphale, her eyes sparkling. Oh _no_. Had he…?

“ _The_ Crowley?” the Professor asked mischievously.

He had. Blast!

“Did you get all that trouble with your families smoothed out, then?” Professor Gurmani asked, a hint of worry lining her kind face.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Not really. Those two people who were just here… You basically saved us.”

“Oh!” She winced. “I’m so sorry. But I’m glad you’ve finally decided to put your own happiness first, Mr Fell. And that your boyfriend was here to support you during the confrontation.”

“Well…” Aziraphale stopped and swallowed. “So am I,” he said softly.


	5. It’s a Hard Life

Heaven had somehow changed Aziraphale’s body to make it susceptible to human ailments. Had Hell perhaps done the same to Crowley’s mind? Because surely he was hearing things that were not real. Could not be.

Yet, the words were still ringing in his ears. “ _The_ Crowley… Your boyfriend…”

She had definitely said that. And in a conspiratorial tone, as if it was far from the first time they had discussed this topic. 

But why? Why had Aziraphale constructed this lie? Had it been part of his work for Heaven? An elaborate scheme to lead this woman to some act of righteousness? Or was it perhaps more recent? Some kind of defence against their now common enemies? Surely it must be. Why else keep up the pretence now?

Crowley studied the angel, noting visible signs of discomfort. Was he in pain again? Or was the subject itself perhaps painful for him? Crowley’s heart twinged. He knew they could never be… _that_. But he had thought that the fondness he felt for Aziraphale was at least partially returned. At least enough for him not to feel physically ill at the thought of being Crowley’s… boyfriend…

No, the angel was too good for that. Too kind. If he was discomforted by the conversation, it was on Crowley’s behalf. He had never intended for him to become a part of this deception, not because he did not trust the demon’s abilities to dissemble, but… 

Oh no! 

He knew!

How could he not?

Crowley had always assumed that the angel was aware of his feelings for him. And that he was merely showing kindness in treating it with the casual discretion that allowed Crowley to keep some semblance of dignity. But still, some small part of him must have hoped that he had successfully kept Aziraphale in the dark. Why else would it feel like the pit had opened under his feet yet again? That he was on the brink of a much, much deeper fall?

Aziraphale knew how Crowley felt. And still he had chosen him as the subject of this deception. He knew the angel had a bit of a ruthless streak, but he had not expected him to be capable of such cruelty. Bastard!

He should call him out on it. Right now! Ruin whatever scheme he was working on by letting the professor know exactly what was and wasn’t going on between them.

He opened his mouth to protest, but the crimson glow of Aziraphale’s ears, as he kept his head down and turned away from Crowley, gave him pause. No. The angel may have used him, but he had not wanted Crowley to know. He had tried to spare him. It was not his fault that circumstance had thwarted him.

Crowley took a deep (unnecessary) breath, squared his shoulders and walked, not sauntered, to Aziraphale’s side and laid an arm around his shoulders. “We take good care of each other,” he told the smiling woman. “You need not worry about us.”

Aziraphale froze under his touch, but then seemed to make himself relax. “We do our best.”

Crowley flashed them both what he hoped was a winning smile; then, figuring this might be his only chance, pressed a brief kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek and dashed towards the door. “I will see you tonight… Darling…” he called over his shoulder before absconding.

…

Crowley walked. He neither knew nor cared where he was going. As long as he didn’t have to stop. His car, he supposed, was still parked around the corner from the bookshop. It didn’t matter. It would be waiting for him later. Or find its own way home. Could it do that? 

He shook his head and let out a frustrated hiss that sent several pedestrians scampering for cover. It didn’t even make him smile. Nothing would ever make him smile again. The world might as well have ended that day. What was the point of it still hanging around?

Well, all the humans, he supposed. 

But himself? He should have just gone ahead and taken that bath in Hell. Gotten it all over with. Surely skinny dipping in Holy Water would have felt downright pleasant compared to this torment.

Ah… no… That didn’t work either. If Crowley had shown up for his own trial, Aziraphale would have been hauled off to Heaven and… Nope! Not going there. 

He passed a group of chattering tourists whose cameras all imploded with loud pops and little puffs of smoke. Two selfie sticks melted and the tour guide’s megaphone began blaring _Mambo No. 5_.

Was he angry with Aziraphale? He supposed he was. Surely the angel had known what this would do to Crowley. Though… he had clearly not intended for him to find out, so the worst crime he could be blamed for was that of not thinking ahead. Which really shouldn’t surprise Crowley, since it was that very flaw that had first endeared the angel to him. And which had been a constant source of amusement, amazement and not a few headaches over the past millennia.

His angel was an idiot. That was why Crowley loved him. He was bound to be on the receiving end of that stupidity every now and then. That was just how things worked. And Crowley was a big demon. He could take it. He’d only overreacted because he’d been taken by surprise by this latest folly. Because he’d been thinking about what the Heavenly weasels had been saying. 

He stopped so abruptly he almost tripped and two elderly men bumped into him. 

“Oi! Watch it, lad!” one of the men huffed and he would have evaporated instantly if Crowley was not already legging it for the nearest tube station.

…

Why wasn’t Aziraphale at his shop? Crowley had been halfway there when he thought to reach out and found that the angel had left. Locating him had been easy enough, though the realisation that he had returned to Crowley’s flat had come very close to diverting his thoughts back down the track he could not let himself succumb to. The only thing that mattered now was Aziraphale’s wellbeing. He was not going to let Heaven have him. Never again.

Turning the corner to his street, he almost tripped a second time. Aziraphale was sitting on the steps outside the door. Why hadn’t he gone inside? Was he feeling worse?

“Angel!” Crowley sped up. “Are you okay?”

"Oh, Crowley!" Aziraphale smiled radiantly and jumped to his feet, swaying just slightly before finding his balance. "Where have you been?"

Crowley grabbed him by both shoulders and pulled him so close their noses were almost touching. "How are you feeling? How's your eye?"

"Crowley, I..." Aziraphale stammered, seemingly finding it difficult to maintain eye contact, probably due to his condition. "I'm fine... My eye got a little worse but I... I got... eyedrops..." His hand brushed against Crowley's thigh as he reached into his pocket. Then he showed him the tiny bottle.

"And the Heavenly Squad? Have they been bothering you again? And why are you out here? Did you get sick? Can you walk?" Crowley froze. Walk? He'd abandoned Aziraphale, forcing him to _walk_ all the way from Soho. In his state!

"My dear, take a deep breath. I know you don't need to, but I find that it generally helps all the same." Aziraphale gently brushed Crowley's upper arm. "It's been a nice, quiet afternoon. I spent most of my time helping Professor Gurmani find that fragment she was looking for, and then I came this way. I was... I was hoping we could talk. But since you weren't home, I thought it wouldn't be very polite to just barge in, so I waited."

He really _did_ seem okay. For now. Crowley let go of Aziraphale and ran a hand through his hair, trying to restore his composure. He snapped the door open and gestured for Aziraphale to go in. "So did you... you took a cab?"

"No..." Aziraphale said hesitantly.

"You walked!"

"Well, no. I could have. I planned to! But... I didn't."

"You didn't?"

For some reason, Aziraphale blushed a little. "Your car picked me up..."

Crowley realised he was giggling like a maniac and stopped himself. "It what?"

"When I left the shop, it drove up to me and opened the passenger door. It was really nice. Didn't drive too fast and didn't play any be-bop."

This was more than Crowley could cope with right now. He took hold of the angel’s arm, spun him around and marched him inside. 

The door slammed so hard the entire neighbourhood trembled.


	6. Pain is So Close to Pleasure

Aziraphale was a little confused by his friend's rapidly changing mood. "I assume the car is not supposed to drive around on its own, but really, you shouldn't be too hard on it," he said as he sat down on the sofa. "I am certain it meant well."

"Forget the car!" Crowley crossed his arms and glared. "What did that bastard mean? Are you... are you... _dying_?"

"Ah. Right. I should have realised you wanted to talk about... _that_." Aziraphale cleared his throat and sat a little straighter. "Listen, even if my body eventually gives in, you know I won't _die_ , right? I'll only be discorporated. It's inconvenient, and I imagine the paperwork will be even worse than before we failed the apocalypse, but... It won't be the end."

"Paperwork?" Crowley spat. "They tried to execute you, remember? They're not gonna let you return. You'll be..." His voice cracked. "... gone!"

Aziraphale wiggled a little uncomfortably back and forth. "But you said it yourself. We won't let them do that, right? And they wouldn't even know how. If even Hellfire doesn't work..."

"But we know they've been doing _something_ to you." Crowley knelt down in front of Aziraphale and took his hands in his. "You have to be careful, angel. Promise me. And don't hide anything from me."

"I promise," Aziraphale said quietly, giving Crowley's hands a gentle squeeze.

From an outside view, he realised, this would almost look like a proposal. And Crowley _had_ kissed his cheek earlier. Aziraphale wondered if he could pull him up into a hug. But they should probably talk about it first. About what Aziraphale had been telling Professor Gurmani. About what he'd been... _pretending_.

He licked his lips and opened his mouth. "Er... Listen, about earlier..."

"Yes!" Crowley jumped to his feet and went over to look out the window. "We can't let it happen again. I suppose we could set up some kind of demonic protection on your shop, but I really do feel it would be safer if you stayed here. I can keep them out of this place. Easily."

Aziraphale tried not to pout as he drew his gaze from the point where Crowley had been, so close to him, a moment before. "But what about the books?"

"I don't know! Is it important?" Something in Aziraphale's eyes must have told Crowley it was. "I suppose we could... bring them here?"

"All of them?" Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. "That would imply a lot of reorganisation. I don't know, Crowley. I doubt the other angels are going to come after me. They shouldn't do any direct harm, remember? But if they've weakened my vessel, they can just sit and wait until it breaks down. And then it won't matter where I am, so I may as well go to the shop as long as I'm capable."

"Fine." Crowley let out a defeated sigh. "But I'm coming with you. Every day."

"I don't doubt it," Aziraphale said, "but will you _stay_ next time?"

"I need some tea! Do you want tea?" Crowley disappeared into the kitchen.

…

As they drank their tea, Aziraphale tried but continuously failed to direct the conversation back to Professor Gurmani. Somehow, the subject kept sliding off Crowley like water off a duck. They even ended up talking about ducks’ bathing habits, and yet they came no closer to the question Aziraphale so badly wanted to ask. It made him nervous enough that his stomach started cramping, and in the end he excused himself and went to bed. 

In the morning he had a headache again, even though he’d made a point of not touching any alcohol all day yesterday. His joints hurt as he sat upright, and he felt dizzy as he made his way out of the bedroom. This was… not exactly better.

His heart squeezed as he saw Crowley draped over the sofa, even more snakelike than usual. He was glaring intently at one of the books Aziraphale had brought home, and Aziraphale wished he’d stay like that. It would be just perfect if Aziraphale could snuggle close with a book of his own, and neither of them would have to move for the next three hours.

A wave of vertigo drew him out of that daydream and he almost stumbled into Crowley’s lap instead.

“Sorry!” he gasped. “Fell over my own feet.”

Crowley steadied him and somehow managed to twist out of the sofa, neatly settling Aziraphale in his place. "How are you feeling?" he asked softly.

"Not very well," Aziraphale admitted. "I'm beginning to suspect sleep might make things worse."

"I doubt that very much." Crowley's smile was almost tender as he touched the back of his hand to Aziraphale's forehead. "You're hot."

The corners of Aziraphale's mouth curled up completely out of their own volition. "What?"

"Your skin. I think you might have a fever." Crowley's hand lingered for a moment, his eyes searching Aziraphale's face for... something. Then he pulled away. "I'll get you some water."

Now that Crowley had mentioned it, Aziraphale _did_ feel like his face might be burning up. Or maybe that was because some part of him had hoped... No, it was silly. Crowley would never have meant _that_. He must be running quite a bad fever if he was getting such thoughts.

Crowley quickly returned with a glass and some pills. "These might help."

"Thank you, dear. I... I think staying here for the day wouldn't be such a bad idea after all."

Crowley brightened visibly. "Yes. I can make you breakfast. Do you want breakfast?"

Aziraphale thought his heart would rip in two if he were to refuse Crowley anything when he looked like this. "I'd love some," he said. "But please don't go to too much trouble. I don't know how much I'll be able to eat."

…

In the end, it wasn’t Aziraphale’s appetite that kept him from eating as much of the bacon and eggs as he would have liked, but rather the fact that he couldn’t stop sneezing. Even reading was a chore as he sat sniffling and wiping tears from his eyes. Scoffing, Crowley took the book from him and started reading out loud, which was really awfully nice of him—but both of them should have realised that an old book of medicine didn’t contain the kind of thrilling content that would keep Aziraphale awake in his current condition.

When he woke up again, he was even more convinced that sleep made his health deteriorate. As he opened his mouth to lick his dry lips, the skin in the corners of his mouth cracked painfully.

It was annoying enough that he told Crowley about it. 

“Hang on.” Crowley put the book down as he got up and went into the bathroom. A moment later, he returned with a small, unlabelled white tube. After studying it suspiciously, he opened it, put a tiny dolt on his fingers and made to rub it onto Aziraphale’s lips. 

Aziraphale pulled away from his fingers in reflex. “What is that?”

“... Ointment?” The word ‘antimycotic’ appeared in elegant letters on the tube. “Antimycotic ointment.”

Aziraphale blinked. “Did you just go to the bathroom to miracle me some medicine?”

“Uhm… No…” Crowley looked away.

“It’s sweet. Thank you.” Aziraphale reached out and brushed Crowley’s cheek with his fingers.

Crowley’s eyes widened for a second. Then he hissed something that might have been ‘Take that back!’ and ran for the kitchen.

“Crowley, wait!” Aziraphale tried to go after him, but his legs didn’t collaborate and he almost fell. “Ugh! Well, I’ll apply my own ointment then, shall I,” he grumbled, picking up the small tube.


	7. Don’t Try So Hard

“Good morning.” Crowley was kneeling next to the bed, stroking Aziraphale’s arm gently. “How are you feeling today?”

Aziraphale woke up with a jolt. “Crowley? I… I can’t remember going to bed… What time is it?”

"It's almost noon." Crowley smiled fondly. "I thought you might like some fresh air."

"Right." Aziraphale tried to blink himself awake. "Did you carry me to bed?"

Crowley didn't turn away this time. "You looked uncomfortable."

"I appreciate it. My back is hurting much less than last night." Aziraphale could almost hit himself. Couldn't he talk to Crowley for more than a minute without speaking of pain?

"That's good." Crowley checked his forehead. "So how about it? We could take a little drive. I've prepared a basket."

"A... a basket?"

"You know... wine... snacks... Like a picnic." Crowley squirmed a little but kept smiling.

"We... we're going on a picnic?" Aziraphale repeated. "Today?"

Crowley frowned and bit his lip. "Only if you feel up to it."

"Yes. I would love to. Yes!"

...

Aziraphale's enthusiasm was tempered once he started moving. Though his back was indeed better, every single one of his muscles was sore, and when he finally, frustratingly slowly, had gotten to his feet, he felt so dizzy he had to sit right back down. This was terrifying. If he kept deteriorating at this rate…

He'd better not finish that thought. Not with Crowley around.

His friend was now patiently keeping him upright and helping him put on his clothes. It was embarrassing. How did humans handle these things on an everyday basis? One thing was certain; if it was humility Heaven wanted him to learn, they'd accomplished their mission.

The most horrible part was that it was _nice_ to be leaning into Crowley's touches like this. After almost swooning into his arms on the way to the door, Aziraphale felt so guilty he miracled himself a cane to lean on instead.

"So, where are we driving?" he asked, after Crowley had helped him get settled in the Bentley and he had caught his breath enough to be able to speak.

"I thought we'd get out of the city." Crowley reached back into the basket he'd placed in the backseat and got out a CD, still wrapped in cellophane. He kept it discreetly turned away as he opened it and put it in the Blaupunkt. "I hope this will do," he said with a smug smile as the actual sound of Vivaldi's _La Tempesta di Mare for violin_ filled the car.

Aziraphale's eyes widened. "Crowley! The music! Did... did the curse break?"

Crowley chuckled. "No, I just know how to cheat it."

"Excellent!" Aziraphale leaned back to enjoy the music for a few minutes. "Thank you, Crowley. For... all this." 

"Anything for you. Angel."

Aziraphale suddenly found it difficult to swallow and looked out the window to his left until he had his emotions back under control. "I... I really don't want to... leave."

Crowley shook his head firmly. "You're not going anywhere."

"No. Of course." Aziraphale smiled a little. "Except with you." 

They drove out of London at a surprisingly leisurely speed. As the landscape began to grow greener, Aziraphale realised in what direction they were driving. "Are we going to Tadfield?" 

"Is that okay?" Crowley glanced quickly at him.

"Of course. I'm just a little surprised. But it sure is a lovely place for a picnic. It makes sense for us to make some better memories there." 

"They're not all bad," Crowley muttered with a sly smile as they passed the Tadfield Manor Conference and Management Training Centre.

"That's true." Aziraphale wondered if he could get Crowley wound up enough to push him against a tree somewhere, before remembering his legs would probably give out anyway.

"And we _did_ stop the Apocalypse." Crowley slowed the car and turned down a narrow dirt road that wound its way between green slopes and small groves.

Aziraphale wasn't sure how to react when he saw a group of people waiting for them as Crowley parked on the side of the road by an outstretched meadow: Ms Anathema, Mr Newton, and Adam and his three friends. Although Aziraphale would be glad to see them in any other circumstances, this wasn't how he'd pictured their day.

"So it's not just us then," he remarked to Crowley, hoping he didn't sound too petulant.

"Well, no..." Crowley opened the door. "They wanted to say hi."

...

Considering that they’d only met one time before, things could have been quite awkward, but once the blankets were spread out and snacks distributed, everybody seemed to relax and was chatting comfortably.

Everybody except Crowley, who was fidgeting and shifting around, either glaring at Ms Device, studying Aziraphale intently or sending the young boy, Adam, some looks that Aziraphale couldn’t quite read. Finally the boy seemed to relent and moved over to sit next to the angel. 

“He said you’re not feeling well, Sir.” The dog lay down with its head in its young master’s lap and whined softly.

“Oh, I’ll be fine! I was rather under the weather this morning, but the fresh Tadfield air is already doing me a _lot_ of good.” Angels should not lie; but Aziraphale could hardly burden the child with the knowledge of how he was really feeling.

“He says I should fix you,” Adam said. “Use my powers, like to undo whatever’s happening to you. Only…” He glanced over at Crowley before lowering his voice. “I can’t really do that stuff anymore. I’ve tried a couple of small things and sometimes they work, but ever since… that day, it’s just sort of… wearing off.”

"Oh." Aziraphale had to admit that, when he'd caught sight of Adam, some part of him had hoped... But he should have known. It made sense. "Don't worry about it, dear boy. It's very kind of you that you would have tried if you could. Thank you."

Adam looked down at the grass and thought for a moment. "Will he be okay?" he asked. "Without you, I mean?"

"I don't know," Aziraphale replied honestly. "I sincerely hope it won't come to that. By... by some kind of miracle. A kind we haven't thought of yet."

"Yeah." Adam smiled. "You'll figure it out. You can do everything."

"Yes..." Aziraphale glanced at Crowley. "He can, can't he?" 

"No, you can't!" Newton called out, stepping between Crowley and Anathema with an expression of shock. 

Crowley lowered his hand. "She'd deserve it. How could she be so irresponsible? Did she think of anyone but herself?"

"She _finally_ thought of herself! For the first time in her life!" Newton cried.

"What's going on?" Aziraphale asked.

"Your demon is upset there’s no prophecy about your current predicament," Anathema explained.

"You don't know that!" Crowley huffed. "There might have been! You didn't even check!"

"There wasn't," Aziraphale said. "Unless... unless the book wasn't all?" He gasped.

"Of course it wasn't!" Crowley clenched his fists, hissed and then stomped towards the nearest clump of trees.

"Wait, but... I've never heard of another book by Agnes Nutter!" Aziraphale protested. "What happened to it?"

"I didn't want to just be a descendant anymore," Anathema said, watching Crowley disappear. "To have her looking over my shoulder, telling me how to live my life."

"That's understandable, but... How about you let me keep it safe for you?" 

Anathema sighed. "I..."

"Bloody burnt it!" Crowley's voice sounded from amongst the trees. "Like a damned nazi, she did!"

Aziraphale felt all colour leave his face. "You... _burnt_... a book?" 

"Ooh, that's bad," Pepper commented.

"It...it seemed like a good idea..."

"But I have a bookshop!"

"This wasn't just any book."

"It's much safer this way," Newton piped up. "It can never fall in the wrong hands."

Aziraphale frowned. "You don't think I would have kept it safe?"

"Well, yeah, but..." Newton gestured at him awkwardly. "You're not going to be around forever, are you?"


	8. See What a Fool I've Been

Crowley knew that running off like that had been wrong. But he also knew that if he had stayed behind, nothing—not her ex-witchfinder boyfriend, not the children watching, not even Aziraphale’s intervention—could have kept him from putting some kind of curse on the stupid witch. Her ancestor’s book had just helped prevent the actual end of the world. And upon learning that there might be a second calamity at hand, what had she done? Not only had she refused to read the bloody book herself, but she’d gone and destroyed it, preventing anyone else from making use of it.

Crowley wanted to scream, but he was still too close to the others. Could still hear their voices like faint mutterings. So he sped up and finally found himself properly secluded with a conveniently decrepit looking buckthorn in need of a good reprimand.

Properly vented, Crowley eventually made his way back to the site of the picnic, only to find everyone gone except his angel, who sat slumped against the trunk of an old oak, wrapped in blankets. 

He wasn’t moving.

He was…

“Angel!” Crowley cried, stumbling up the slope to get to him. “Aziraphale!”

"Oh!" Aziraphale opened his eyes. "Hello, dear. I was lost in thought for a moment. Did you have a nice walk?" 

Crowley knelt down and took Aziraphale's hands in his. "Where is everyone?" he asked softly, trying to hide his relief.

"They went home. Things turned a little... awkward." Aziraphale sighed. "We shouldn't blame young Anathema. She made an understandable decision; she just didn't think it through." 

"They never do." Crowley sneered. He began to get up, then hesitated. "How are you feeling? Can you stand?"

"Of course. I think I might even like a short walk before we head home."

"That's great. But let me at least help you up." Crowley offered his arm.

"Thank you, dear." Aziraphale started pushing to his feet, but stalled halfway. "Oof! I... I can't..."

Crowley caught him as best he could. "Easy, angel. I got you." He slowly straightened up, wrapping an arm around Aziraphale. "Just lean on me."

"I'm sorry," Aziraphale said, limping badly. "I swear I could have managed a walk earlier. At this rate, we might not have much time to come up with a plan..." 

"Don't say that." Hellfire tore through Crowley's chest, making him wince as if he were the one being tortured by Heaven. "We'll have time. We'll make time."

"I hope you're right." Aziraphale leaned his head on Crowley's shoulder for a moment before struggling through yet another step.

Getting to the car was slow work, but Crowley wasn't complaining. How many times had his angel been this close? Not many. Nowhere near enough.

He was reluctant to let go even after Aziraphale was comfortably settled, but they really should be heading home. As he walked around to the driver's side, he snapped the basket, extra blankets and Aziraphale's cane into the boot.

Crowley gnawed on his lip as he started the car, barely registering that Aziraphale turned the music, which was thankfully still Vivaldi, on. Were they really running out of time? After millennia of… whatever it was they had, was this the end? They’d just escaped Armageddon, helped prevent it, even, and now they would be torn apart by something as mundane as a failing body? 

No! He would not let this happen. He could not. At least not without…

He glanced over at Aziraphale, who had closed his eyes again. “Angel?”

Aziraphale slowly turned his head towards him and opened his eyes. "Yes, my dear?"

"That thing at the shop. With the woman. What you said about me. I know why you did it. Well, sort of. Anyway, I understand, and... I just want you to know. I didn't mind."

Aziraphale studied him for a long moment. "You mean you don't mind... that I talked about you?"

"Of course not." Crowley smiled. "In fact I'm flattered. That you would choose me."

" _Choose_ you?" Aziraphale let out a small laugh. "Who else would I choose?"

"Yeah, I mean, you could have just made someone up, I suppose." Crowley shrugged. "But I see the advantage of basing it on an actual person. In case you needed him... me... for something."

"I'm not entirely certain that I follow your meaning. What do you think I wished to... gain... from those conversations?" 

"Well, I don't know the whole plan, obviously, but you must have been working some kind of holy scheme. Maybe inspiring that woman to acts of compassion and tolerance. I suppose she could be influencing her students and all that. So anyway... happy to help."

“Right." Aziraphale cleared his throat and looked the other way. 

Crowley sighed. If he didn't say it now, he might never get the chance. "I only wish you'd asked me. I could have gotten more... involved." He took a deep breath, but the words still came out as barely more than a whisper: "I'd have liked that."

Aziraphale turned his head so fast it looked like a blur in the corner of Crowley's eye. "You would? Being helpful isn't very demonic..." 

"I've helped you before." The Bentley seemed to require more of his attention than usual. "That's what we do, right? For each other?"

"Is that all it is?" Aziraphale asked quietly.

"A demon helping an angel... " Crowley managed a fair approximation of a laugh. "Isn't that big enough for you? How about the demon defying Heaven and Hell for the angel? Stopping the end of the world for him?"

"An angel and a demon being best friends," Aziraphale countered. "Striking up a professional partnership. Becoming _partners_. In more ways than one. At least..." He sighed. "That was probably just me being wishful. Professor Gurmani doesn't really need any nudges from me to be good." 

"You mean you said those things just because..." Crowley's brain hadn't been this hard at work since planning the M25. "Because you... wanted to?" They barely avoided a head-on collision with a lorry.

Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "At first we were just chatting. And I told the professor about you, just in passing, because we were exchanging anecdotes. And I suppose... I suppose I talked about you quite a lot? So she... assumed... and I failed to correct her. Because to be fair, I didn't mind in the slightest. I just hadn't counted on you finding out about it." 

"Oh..." So it hadn't been a conscious decision. And certainly not (Crowley despised himself for having thought of it) a backwards way of letting Crowley know how he felt. "Well, I suppose I'm grateful you didn't find her mistake... demeaning."

"And I'm grateful you would have been willing to play along either way. I certainly hadn't expected you to kiss me." Aziraphale paused, and then, quietly, added: "It was a nice surprise."

"I improvised." Crowley couldn't help but smile at the memory. "I'm sorry I didn't stick around."

"Me too." It was a shame Crowley had to watch the road, as he could have sworn Aziraphale was smirking a little.

He opened his mouth to say… something. But no, he should consider this carefully. Something was going on here, but it was _not_ familiar territory for him. He was good at planning elaborate inconveniences and even better at implying responsibility for calamities. But this… This dance of words was beyond his talents. Just as he thought that Aziraphale had understood his unspoken questions, the angel went and said something unexpected. Something that proved beyond a doubt that Crowley had been imagining any reciprocation on his part. Only to throw everything into doubt again with his next statement. Or was Crowley perhaps just being dense? Maybe Aziraphale really was trying to say the exact same thing, and being equally circumspect about it. If so, they could go on like this forever. Except they couldn’t now, could they?

Drawing up every last ounce of courage from the deepest pits of his accursed soul, Crowley eased the car to a gentle stop in front of his door and turned to Aziraphale. 

“Would you mind if I tried again? Kissing you, I mean?”

He supposed he could have gotten far worse answers than a gentle snore.


	9. Too Much Love Will Kill You

Crowley didn't want to wake Aziraphale up yet. He had managed to move him into his bed without waking him up and had spent the whole night and most of the morning sitting by his side, just watching him. The angel looked so peaceful in his sleep. And once he woke, Crowley would have to repeat his question and no matter what Aziraphale answered, things were going to change between them. 

So who could blame Crowley for lingering? For just wanting to watch his best friend... his only friend sleep. For just a little longer.

Suddenly, Aziraphale heaved and sat upright with a jolt. He started coughing, his face growing red and tears rolling from his eyes. 

Crowley surged forward but was afraid to touch the angel, lest he make things worse. "What can I do?"

"Wa... water..." Aziraphale managed between coughs.

"Of course." Crowley was halfway to the door before he realised that magicking it would be quicker and returned to Aziraphale, helping him lift the glass to his lips.

"Ugh," Aziraphale said as he had sipped the water and finally stopped coughing. " _Fuck_."

Crowley couldn't help but laugh. "Well said, angel."

"Everything hurts." Aziraphale scowled.

"I'm sorry." Crowley stroked his arm gently. "Can I get you something? Some pills? Wine?"

Aziraphale sighed. "I doubt pills will make any difference at this point. And wine... it would be a shame. I've got the most foul taste in my mouth."

"Mint, then?" Crowley offered, trying not to sound too worried.

"That might help. Thank you, dear." 

After sucking the mint pensively for a long moment, Aziraphale asked: "Would you mind taking me to Berkeley Square today? Just us this time. It doesn't even have to be a picnic." 

"Of course, angel." Crowley hesitated. "I got you something. I thought it might make things a little easier." He gestured to the old-fashioned wheelchair by the door. "If it's okay?"

"Ah, yes." Aziraphale smiled but was then interrupted by a few more coughs. "That's very thoughtful of you, dear," he added hoarsely. 

...

The rain stopped just as Crowley parked the car, and by the time he had Aziraphale settled in the chair, the sun had come out from behind a cloud and was making the leaves and grass sparkle as with a million diamonds.

Crowley hated it. 

He found a nice spot of grass, a little off from the path where they could talk in peace, and pulled the brakes on the chair before letting go. "Are you sure I can't get you anything? A cup of tea? An ice cream? Sushi?"

"No, thanks. I'm good. And not just in the obvious way. Just sit with me for a bit."

Crowley snapped up a lawn chair, but before sitting down, he checked the blankets around Aziraphale's legs an extra time and adjusted the pillow at his back.

"Isn't that nice," a voice piped up behind him, and he turned to see an old woman walking her small, shaggy dog. "Taking care of your dear old dad. It's rare to see such devotion in young people nowadays."

Crowley bristled. "He's not my dad," he retorted. "He's my boyfriend!"

"Ah... right..." The woman's smile turned a bit stiff and with a hard yank on the leash, she hurried on.

As Crowley sat down, Aziraphale was beaming at him.

"What are you laughing... oh, right." Crowley hoped his smile wasn't too sheepish. "Do you mind?"

" _Mind_?" Aziraphale repeated, smiling. "I'm delighted!"

Crowley shifted the blanket a little so he could take Aziraphale's hand in his and give it a careful squeeze. "It sort of makes sense, doesn't it?"

Aziraphale gave Crowley the sort of soft, fond look that made his insides go weak. "Of course. After all, you were willing to help me with _my_ scheme as well."

He waited just long enough to make Crowley's insides freeze over before grinning.

"Oh, you..." Crowley couldn't find it in himself to be even slightly annoyed at Aziraphale. "Maybe it's time we took a break from all the scheming and just... lived?"

Aziraphale sighed. "Yes. That would have been nice." 

"Oh, angel," Crowley whined. "Don't say that. Please don't. There's still time. We can fix this. If we can save the world, surely we can save a silly old angel." He shifted his chair so he could look directly at Aziraphale and lifted his hand up out of the blankets to kiss the knuckles. "You just hang in there, you hear me?"

"I'm trying. I really am. But every fibre of my being seems to be rejecting my vessel. As you've pointed out before, angels weren't meant to endure physical suffering." 

"I will help you. Anything you want me to do, just say it. Maybe… maybe if we switched again, I could take it on me. Or at least some of it. I could bear it. Demons are more resilient, right?"

"Don't be silly, Crowley. I'm not going to let you die instead of me. I'll just... I'll do my best to return to you as quickly as I can." Aziraphale’s expression clouded again as he looked down at their joined hands. "I really don't want to leave you. But I don't think I have a choice." 

Crowley’s heart didn't break. It was worse. 

As his hope crumbled, he slid from the chair down to his knees. Clinging to his angel, he burrowed his face in the blankets, whimpering: "But I need you..."

Aziraphale lightly petted his hair, his hand trembling. "The feeling is mutual. Obviously." 

It was supposed to be a laugh but might have sounded a bit more like a sob. "Obviously."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’ll be posting a short chapter tomorrow.


	10. Who Wants to Live Forever

It was painfully peaceful. Just being this close to Aziraphale with no words to say, no actions to take. Except, maybe… He could ask for that kiss again. He had nothing left to lose, right?

Crowley drew in a breath, lifted his head and died inside.

He had hesitated too long. It was over.

He stared at the empty chair, his hands clenching in the blankets that were still warm. 

No! It couldn’t be! It was too soon. Aziraphale couldn’t be gone. Not yet. He needed more time.

A cry of such anguish and rage had never been uttered in the city of London before and as it reverberated through the streets, it brought time to a stuttering halt.

Crowley flung himself to the ground, tearing at his hair. He was so stupid. He could have _literally_ given them more time! Why, on the one occasion that it really counted, had he not thought of the most obvious solution? They could have all the time they wanted in their own little bubble of happiness. They could have had an eternity.

But it was too late now. The bastards had stolen Aziraphale away and in spite of the angel’s promises, Crowley could not believe that they would let him go this time.


	11. The Night Comes Down

Crowley didn’t remember getting back into the car and he certainly didn’t recall driving it. But here he was, parked in front of the bookshop.  _ His  _ bookshop. Crowley stared at the dark windows and swallowed hard. He wasn’t in there. He would never be in there again. This was worse than the time the place had burned down. So much worse. 

Why had Adam bothered restoring it? What was the point of the shop when there was no sappy, soft angel to putter around between the shelves, lovingly handling the books and scaring off all potential customers and other disturbers of his peace?

Crowley sniffed. Maybe he should burn it down again?

But no! He could never do that. This was all the world had left of Aziraphale. All  _ he _ had left. 

It only took a moment of concentration. The air around the shop seemed to shimmer and it was done. There was no apparent change. Not to the shop, anyway, but the people walking by seemed to avert their eyes. Look the other way. It was as if A.Z. Fell and Co. had ceased to exist. To anyone but Crowley.

He closed his eyes. “Home,” he croaked, and felt the car begin to rumble. It sounded miserable too.

…

Unbeknownst to Crowley, days passed while he just sat at the table staring into nothingness. He spent the better part of a week lying curled up under his table and then an entire night storming through the flat, kicking over anything that could fall and quite a few things that weren’t supposed to but obliged him anyway. The only things to go unharmed were the bed (Aziraphale had slept there) and the plants (the angel had liked them).

He ended up in the bathroom, standing in the shower, wishing the cold spray would turn to Holy Water and end his suffering.

…

A month and three days after Aziraphale… passed… Crowley ventured outside for the first time. He didn’t really have a purpose; he just needed to get away for a bit. 

The Bentley swung its door open for him and before he had even considered where to go, it set off with him, breaking its own records for inner city driving.

“Not again!” he groaned as they stopped in front of the shop. “He’s not in there, you know. There’s no point.” He sighed. “Take me to… Take me to Hampstead. Heath.”

Maybe a walk would do him good. In a place that wasn’t teeming with unwanted memories.

He stood an hour inside the gate, then spun around and returned to the car.

“Don’t you dare,” he snapped as it released the brake. “This time, I’m driving.”

He ended up back home and, without even hesitating, threw himself into the bed that no longer smelled like the angel, no matter how much he wanted it to. He slept for two days.

…

The fifth time the car took him there, Crowley relented.

He lifted the curse and as he walked up the steps, the door swung open for him.

The place was covered in dust. Like the shroud its beloved owner never had. It was a fitting tribute.

Careful not to disturb anything, Crowley made his way to the desk where he’d so often watched the angel read his books. Worship them, almost. 

He spun around in panic at an unexpected sound before realising that it was himself that had let out a broken, rusty chuckle. Was he… Was he smiling?

Crowley had to blow the dust off a pane of glass in one of the cabinets to check. Yup. There was definitely a hint of something that bore at least a little semblance to a smile. The memories still hurt, but there was a new facet to them. A painfully sweet fondness.

“Oh, angel,” Crowley whispered as he sat down in Aziraphale’s chair and ran a finger along the rim of the winged mug. “Why did you have to go and leave me? You bastard.”

...

Crowley returned the next day. And the next. As he walked into the shop, six weeks precisely after… that day… he glanced at the sign in the window and smiled. Aziraphale might have had rather erratic opening hours and more often than not actively prevented sales from taking place, but he had still kept the shop open fairly consistently over the last two centuries. 

Crowley hesitated a moment, then shrugged and left the door unlocked as he snapped the lights on and headed for Aziraphale’s chair. There were no customers that first day, and over the following weeks only a handful of people popped in, two of them to ask for directions to Forbidden Planet and one to borrow the loo.

A short man with a heavy Jamaican accent asked him for a couple of books, but Crowley had no idea where anything actually was located and, after helping the man search for almost three hours, had to send him away empty-handed.

Only afterwards did he stop to consider what he would have done if they had found any of the books. Would he have sold them to the man? Did he have the right? These were Aziraphale’s books.  _ His _ collection. He would never want it decimated and scattered into the hands of countless bibliophiles and other oddballs. 

On the other hand, what good did it do anybody to let the books just collect dust on the shelves until they fell apart? What kind of sad memorial would that be? Wouldn’t it be better for this world, which Aziraphale had loved so dearly, if his darling books were allowed to move on to humans whose lives might be just a little brighter for it?

While grappling with this conundrum, Crowley had wandered into the backroom where Aziraphale kept his personal belongings, including his prized collection of vintage wine. 

Sometime after midnight, a very inebriated Crowley declared to the world in general and the empty bookshop in particular: “I  _ shall  _ sell his books! But only…” He caught the bottle before it could smash on the floor. “Only if I find them worthy!” He raised his chin proudly and promptly passed out.


	12. A Winter’s Tale

“Oh, you clever sod!” Crowley chuckled and then wiped away the single tear that seemed to always accompany the fond but painful smile the mere thought of Aziraphale brought to his lips these days. 

He put the large, brown book back on the shelf and turned slowly around, scanning the shop. He had finally cracked it! Finally worked out the nebulous logic behind the system that the angel had used to organise his books.

The first part had been easy. They were scrupulously divided by category and genre. Fiction in one part of the shop, philosophy in another. The theoretical and practical sections were rather small, while the corner of bibles was, for lack of a better word, awe-inspiring. The books of prophecy were hidden away in a locked cabinet far to the back, meant for nobody’s eyes but Aziraphale’s. Upon realising what he had uncovered, Crowley had quickly fixed the lock and not gone near that particular trove again. Even touching those books would be too… intimate.

No, finding the right section of shelves had not been the problem, it was locating the specific work that had proved nigh on impossible. It had taken several long nights and an ungodly deluge of wine and tears to see the pattern.

And, Crowley liked to think, there was not a single creature in existence, save himself, who would ever have spotted it. 

A hazy memory from a celebratory binge during the Blitz had put him on the right track. Aziraphale had been quoting Greek poetry but couldn’t quite remember the last stanza. As he’d searched the shelves for the needed volume, he had been muttering to himself. Something along the lines of: “Perfection, perfection, excellent, excellent, excellent… decent… good… tolerable… ugh…”, while running a finger along the backs of the books.

It was quite simple, but also so impossibly stupid that no one but Aziraphale could have come up with it. 

Crowley checked the colonial dramas, then the gothic romances and finally, after a close study of a shelf of botanical handbooks from the 18th and 19th century, he was confident that his theory was correct.

Aziraphale had not sorted the books according to author, publisher or any kind of chronology. His system was based on whether or not he, personally, found the book to be _good_.

…

Knowing Aziraphale’s system didn’t always make it easier to find any particular book. Crowley brought in a computer and set up a program in which he entered every single book he remembered the angel ever telling him about and tried ordering them according to what he had said, _how_ he had said it and whether or not his eyes had sparkled while doing so. But that was only a tiny fraction of the books he had actually owned, and without reading every single one of them, Crowley could not begin to guess whether or not his angel would have liked them. 

Every now and then, he’d get lucky and a customer would ask for one of the books in his file. Crowley would be brimming with pride when he found the book, proving that he did indeed know Aziraphale better than any other being. But it was not an effective way to run a business.

He did not even consider rearranging the books according to a more conventional, or indeed sensible, premise, but instead set about going through the shelves one by one, noting down the books and slowly creating a virtual, searchable map of the shop’s inventory.

He still only sold one or two books a week, sending most prospective buyers away with a debilitating feeling of being _Not Worthy!_

He had started to recognise a few customers who’d be showing up at regular intervals, actually chatting with the demon who, though he couldn’t advise them the way his predecessor had, was always eager to learn more about the world of rare books and literary history. He might have actually been there himself, but had hardly paid attention beyond when Aziraphale required his aid in one of his ventures.

These conversations let him relive the different eras and if he ever got a bit sniffly, nobody ever remarked on it.

...

It had been six months since he’d opened the shop when Professor Gurmani returned. He recognised her at once and got up from his chair, careful to mark his page in the illustrated edition of _The Blazing World_ before putting it on the table. 

“Professor.” He smiled as he approached her. “Welcome. How can I help you?”

“Oh… Hello… Crowley?” She returned his smile and offered her hand. “I know we were barely introduced, but considering all the things your boyfriend told me about you…” She looked around. “Where is Mr Fell? Are you watching the shop for him?”

Crowley’s smile faltered and he was very grateful that his glasses obscured what he did not doubt must be a rather pained expression. “Azi… Mr Fell is no longer with us, he… He had to go away.”

“Oh dear, no.” The professor let go of Crowley’s hand to cover her mouth. “I’m so sorry. Is he… Was it something with that family of his?”

Biting his lip, Crowley nodded. “They finally managed to come between us. He… He isn’t coming back.”

“Never?”

He shook his head and began to turn away, but she caught his hand in both of hers, squeezing it softly. “Don’t be so sure, young man. I don’t know much about your situation, but I do know he loves you very very much. I do not doubt he will move Heaven and Earth to be with you again. You’ll see. As long as there is breath in his body, he will not give up. And neither must you.”

…

The temperature had not dipped below zero for almost a week and the first flowers of spring were slowly poking up amongst the sodden leaves on the ground. The colours were still primarily shades of brown and green, but in a corner of Berkeley Square, a ring of pale stones surrounded a small bed in which a clump of beautiful white calla lilies had survived the winter months and were still in full bloom. In front of them was a plaque so small you had to kneel down to read it: 

_‘Traitors for a traitor.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part 1.


	13. I Want to Break Free

Aziraphale was in Heaven.

Unfortunately, that was only in the literal sense.

He was utterly, intensely _bored_. And even more frustrated by the reason _why_. Why couldn’t they just have let him live his life on Earth? What use was it to Head Office that he sat here in a place that was not even really a cell, but in fact a void? There were few truly _empty_ spaces in Heaven, and Aziraphale did not know whether they had created this one specifically for his punishment, or if it had been there all along. Either way, it could have done with some books. Some shelves. A sofa. A drinks cabinet. A phonograph…

Instead, there was nothing. Nothing, all around. When Aziraphale had tried to miracle one of his favourite books to keep him busy, only a few specks of dust had appeared. His only distraction, once a day, was a celestial harmony sounding somewhere to his left, and he honestly wished they wouldn’t grant him _that_ particular favour. Crowley had been all too right about them—and the memory of him, talking about the harmonies with scorn, made Aziraphale miss him all the more.

No, if Aziraphale had been called up here to fulfil one of God’s Great Plans (preferably not involving any wars), he would have been able to handle it. At least then there would have been a clear end point to his stay. But now he was just sitting here, without being any use. Who was going to spread divinity on Earth now that he was no longer there? Who was going to thwart the wiles of the evil one?

Not that that had really been _his_ main activity, but it was all about the principle!

As it was, the only reason he was here was _spite_. And the longer he sat here, staring into the white, the more convinced he grew that God had made a mistake by not making that the eighth deadly sin.

He liked to think that his arrival had at least been dignified. Once he’d been torn away from Berkeley Square—away from Crowley’s hand finally in his—he’d taken great care not to show his agitation and had calmly allowed the angels to lead him to his cell. If they didn’t know how upset he was, they might be less likely to expect that he was already planning his escape.

He just wished he’d figure out _how_ he would escape, preferably sometime soon. 

The void did not have any kind of doors or locks that could be opened. Aziraphale had taken some very long walks, and hadn’t found any beginning or end to it. And as no one ever visited, no one could be convinced to help him get out.

In the end he’d sat down and meditated, hoping a solution would come to him. Now and then he’d found himself coughing out of habit, and as he sat cross-legged in the nothingness for endless hours on end, he realised he expected his joints to start protesting soon. Of course that didn’t really happen, and in a way, Aziraphale regretted the absence of pain. If he’d been hurting, at least he’d still have had a body. 

All too often during his meditations, Aziraphale's thoughts wandered to what a human might call daydreams. He’d picture Crowley, opening a door that the demon himself had willed into existence, outside of which the Bentley was waiting to dash them out of Heaven. Crowley, closing that door behind himself for a long moment of privacy inside the void, where they could talk and eat together and let the rest of the world wait just a short while longer until they’d discussed everything they needed to discuss.

And then there were the times when Aziraphale came up with a clever plan to regain his freedom and travelled back down to Earth to surprise Crowley. The only problem was that those plans usually remained rather vague. And when they didn’t, they always depended on a thing he did not have, a circumstance that would never arise or a coincidence that would certainly never happen. 

The main problem was that all of his ethereal powers seemed to have been disabled. Aziraphale hadn’t known that such a thing was possible, but apparently he was incapable of even the simplest supernatural acts inside the void. 

When he was making his twenty-seventh attempt at making a book appear—he now managed to conjure up _five_ specks of dust rather than the initial three, so there was still hope—he was suddenly startled by a soft sound. Surely it was too early for his daily harmony; and the harmonies never started with isolated drums. Though he supposed this was more like the thudding of sturdy heels… Footsteps!

That couldn't be real. Aziraphale was utterly alone in here. Perhaps, after so much practice, his daydreams had grown more vivid?

He looked around, but it took a while before he saw anything but blinding whiteness. And then, finally: a squat figure in a plaid jacket. Grey trousers. Teal shirt, white bowtie, and a dark-haired bespectacled head.

Anpiel?

Why on Earth would he daydream about _her_?

But then she spoke, and Aziraphale realised this had to be real.

"Your shop." Her expression was completely blank as she looked at him. "How do I get into it?"

"My... my bookshop?" Aziraphale was still trying to come to terms with the fact someone was _here_. He was having a _conversation_. “I suppose you’d have to use the door.”

“I already tried that. Or rather, I would have, if I could _find_ the door. That’s some very powerful warding you have put up.”

“It is?” Aziraphale blinked. “I mean… Of course it is. I can’t have just anyone enter.” Was his basic security really enough to keep out a fellow angel? Or… He almost gasped. Of course. Crowley would have taken care of matters.

"Why do you need to enter the shop?" he asked, frowning. Was Heaven going to destroy his home on Earth? How far did this punishment have to go?

"I thought that since you'll no longer have any use for it, I might as well pick up that parrot-book."

"Why? Heaven only has doves anyway." Aziraphale huffed.

"Pigeons," she corrected him. "And only because they snuck in when someone left the front door open." She stood silent for a moment, then seemed to realise that she had not answered his question. "You are being replaced. But Heaven has learned from its mistakes. Instead of letting a single angel cavort with the humans for centuries, risking corruption, we will be taking shifts. I will be making my first rotation soon."

"And you think that to understand humans, you will literally have to study the birds and the bees?" Aziraphale wasn't able to hide his amusement.

She frowned at him. "Bees?"

"You know, like..." Aziraphale fluttered his hands in front of him. "The birds and the bees? Nudge nudge, wink wink?"

The only reaction he got was an impassive stare.

"Right." Aziraphale cleared his throat. "Maybe I should recommend you some other media. They'll help you better than _The Speaking Parrots_. How about..."

She cut him off. "I don't care about the humans. That's not why I volunteered. I want to catch up on birdwatching. And I want to start with the parrots. Back in the day, Dumah told me that giving them the gift of speech would be pointless, but since humans have written books about it, I assume that it has had some kind of impact on their existence."

Aziraphale frowned. That probably wasn't what she'd told Head Office when applying for Earth duty. "There are other reference works on parrots. You don't need _my_ book."

"But I want that one," she insisted. "According to my research, it’s considered the definitive work on the topic. And your copy was in perfect condition."

"It is. But I seriously doubt that its content on parrots is more accurate or better researched than that of any new media.” Aziraphale shook his head. “Either way, I can't just let you into my shop. How can I trust that you won't take anything else?"

"You have been spending too much time with demons."

_Not enough_ , Aziraphale thought morosely. And then an idea sparked in his mind. "That's it! If you want the book, you'll have to get the demon Crowley to fetch it for you. He might know how to circumvent the shop’s protection. And you'll have to give him a message!"

"That demon?" She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "You want me to actually _talk_ to him?"

Aziraphale could barely suppress a wicked grin. "You want the book? Then you'll give him my message."

She stood in silence for several long seconds, then nodded. "Fine, what is your message?"

"Er." Aziraphale had been so proud of himself for coming up with the bargain that he hadn't really considered yet what he wanted to say. "Tell him..." Oh, come on. He'd been thinking of so many things he'd wanted to tell Crowley. Surely there was something!

But he'd never taken into account that there would be a third party involved. His words needed to be personal enough that Crowley would be certain they came from him, but he couldn't be too direct, because that would mean laying all his cards on the table. Who knew what the angels would do if they ever found out how deep his affection for Crowley really ran?

"Hold on. Tell him... Tell him..."

"To give me the book?" Anpiel offered.

"No. Give me a minute!" Could he come up with a code? No, there was no time. Anpiel would surely lose her patience and leave long before he’d be able to work something out.

There had to be another option. Something that...

He gasped as it struck him. "Yes. Okay, listen. Tell Crowley: _Whatever comes of you and me._ "

Anpiel waited. Then she cocked her head. "Is that it?"

Aziraphale hesitated. Would it be enough? Should he give her more?

Surely not. Crowley had heard all those songs thousands of times.

"That's it," he agreed. "He'll know what I mean."

"So I tell him that and then get him to take me to your shop?" she asked. "And I can have the book?"

"You can _borrow_ the book," Aziraphale corrected. "If I ever make it back to Earth, I might want it back."

This actually made her smile, though it wasn't a very nice smile. "Right."

…

He was an idiot!

How could he have sent Anpiel straight to Crowley? How could he have been so careless?

If she attacked Crowley, Aziraphale would never know. He would never see her again. He would be stuck here forever. Who knew how much time had gone by in this void?

Maybe this had been it. The start of the battle against humanity. Humanity and Crowley, as their sole protector. And Aziraphale had given Anpiel just what she needed to gain the demon’s trust before she could strike.

“ _How can somebody as clever as you be so stupid?_ ” Crowley had asked him.

Well, right now Aziraphale didn’t really know about the clever—but he would never forgive himself if his stupidity had caused Crowley any harm.


	14. My Melancholy Blues

Anpiel did finally appear, this time approaching slowly instead of with her previous determined stride.

"Aziraphale, I..." She stopped and just stared at him for a long moment. Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and began again. "Aziraphale, I met with the demon Crowley. He has received your message and told me to..." She paused. "Asked me to bring you his reply. He said: ' _But life still goes on._ '" She shook her head. "Whatever that means."

Aziraphale blinked and looked her up and down. From the way she acted, Crowley must have given her quite a fright. And now a line like that? Telling Aziraphale that he was perfectly fine without him?

Of course Aziraphale was glad that his friend was coping with his absence, but… It simply didn’t feel like something Crowley would do. Not like this.

“You didn’t talk to him, did you?” Aziraphale asked flatly.

"I..." She swallowed hard. "I did. I gave him your message and he considered it for some time and then seemed very pleased. Then I told him that he was to give me the book and we went to the shop, where he... He found it right away. Seemed to already know where it was, and then, as I was about to leave, he asked me to give you this message. I... I assumed there was some kind of hidden meaning?"

Aziraphale frowned and pictured himself in the Bentley’s passenger seat, words, tunes and beats flooding his brain. “But life still goes on…” he muttered. “It’s from _I Want to Break Free_ …” He realised what he’d said and quickly glanced at Anpiel. “Surely he knows it’s impossible for me to break free. The forces of Heaven are far too strong for me. Obviously.” He laughed nervously.

"Obviously," Anpiel echoed. Then she held up the book. "I should... I will go read this. Excuse me."

"Wait, that's it?" Aziraphale called, but Anpiel was already gone.

He groaned miserably and sat down again, trying to remember more lines from the song aside from the obvious. And then, upon encountering ' _You're so self-satisfied, I don't need you'_ , wished he hadn't.

…

Even if only a few specks of dust appeared, the fact that _something_ happened when he tried to summon books gave Aziraphale hope. Perhaps, with a lot of practice, he might find a way to regain his powers and, eventually, miracle himself out of the void. It would take patience, and he’d still much rather find a way that took him back to Crowley right away, but he felt starting out small was the best he could do for now. And so he set out to practise, hoping that if he would succeed in moving small objects across the void without damaging them, he might be able to apply the same technique to himself after a few centuries.

If it _didn’t_ work, it would at least keep him busy while he was coming up with an actually executable plan.

He was attempting yet again to make his bowtie disappear, but accidentally catapulted it several yards away from him when he heard Anpiel’s footsteps approach.

“Whoops! Mind your step!”

Anpiel paused and frowned before walking carefully around the bowtie. "There is... another book I need," she said, fiddling with a sheaf of papers.

Aziraphale frowned. "Did you finish the previous one already?"

"... Of course. I'm an angel!"

Aziraphale paused. "I know you are. What's that to do with anything?"

"I read it," she snapped. "Don't you want me taking another message to... your boyfriend?"

Aziraphale hesitated. Under other circumstances, he would have asked Anpiel to show him the book, to make sure she'd been taking good care of it, but... It _would_ be nice to get a clearer message from Crowley, wouldn't it?

"Fine," he said. "Which book would you like to get?"

"Ducks!" Anpiel said. "It's about ducks."

" _Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa: Birds of the Western Palearctic, Vol. 1, Ostrich to Ducks_?" Aziraphale asked. "Or _Ducks: And How to Make Them Pay_?"

Anpiel's face lit up in the first smile Aziraphale had seen on her. "Make them pay! Yes! That's the one."

Aziraphale studied her for a moment. "You do know it's about animal husbandry, right?"

"Of course. I'm very interested."

"Splendid. So... A message," Aziraphale said, folding his hands in thought.

After watching him for a while, Anpiel cleared her throat and then held out the papers to him. "These might help?"

Aziraphale glanced at her suspiciously, but then his mouth fell open as he saw what they were. "Where... where did you get those?"

"Oh... I..." She fidgeted. "He... the demon gave them to me. For you. I... I forgot." 

Aziraphale almost asked what Crowley had done to her, but then decided he'd rather not know. She seemed so different. Utterly terrified. And that while she hadn't been the least bit impressed by Aziraphale, while _he_ was supposed to be the Angel Who Breathed Hellfire.

"Do the other angels know that you're visiting me?" he asked instead, as he carefully took the _Queen - Platinum Collection - Greatest Hits I-III Album Lyrics_ bundle in his hands.

"I've volunteered to keep an eye on you." She visibly composed herself. "Nobody else wanted the job."

"I see." So perhaps she'd been mildly afraid of him, too, and only now fully realised how dangerous he and Crowley could be together—in theory, at least. That explained it. He turned back to the lyrics. "Be polite to Crowley when you ask him for the second book. He'll find it near the section on idioms. And tell him..." He thumbed through the pages. " _It's a long hard fight._ "

Anpiel's expression went blank for a moment, then she nodded. "I will."

…

_But life still goes on_

_I can't get used to living without, living without_

_Living without you by my side_

_I don't want to live alone_

Aziraphale stared at the pages.

The pages didn’t stare back. It looked like Anpiel hadn’t put anything on them to spy on him. Of course he couldn’t do much wrong inside the void anyway, but it had seemed prudent to check.

They just lay there, pages and pages, an entire _book_ of lyrics for Aziraphale to study.

And, unless Aziraphale was merely projecting his own hopes, they held the Answer. Crowley hadn’t been telling him he was glad to be rid of him on Earth. Of course he hadn’t.

He’d been telling him he _missed_ him.

How much time had passed down there? Aziraphale didn’t have a clue how long he’d spent in the emptiness now. He really should get on with practising magic—but he couldn’t tear himself away from the texts, reading all those words and melodies that were filling his demon’s mind all the time. It made him feel a little closer to Crowley.


	15. It's a Kind of Magic

"And whoop!" Aziraphale told his invisible audience of well-behaved, quiet, very fictional children at the birthday party. "The bowtie is gone!"

There was a strangled gasp behind him. "How... How did you do that?"

Aziraphale was so startled he almost dropped the bowtie from his sleeve. "Who asked that? Warlock?"

"What? No?" Anpiel looked apologetic. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Oh!" Aziraphale automatically smiled at her. It _was_ nicer to see her than the real kids, after all. "Hello. I was just doing some tricks."

"That was not just a trick." Anpiel stepped closer, frowning. "But... you shouldn't be able to use your powers here." She sounded agitated.

"Oh, no, no!" Aziraphale quickly shook the bowtie into his hand. He'd gotten frustrated with his attempts at restoring his true abilities, so he'd given it a break and amused himself with sleight of hand for a while. Now he was grateful that Anpiel hadn't caught him doing real magic. 

"See? Just a clever human act. You'll be surprised what they come up with, when you go down to Earth."

"You've... you're very good at that." Anpiel cocked her head, almost smiling. "Show me again?"

"Oh. Ha. Well." Aziraphale had a feeling that she was only asking to make sure he was telling the truth and hadn't gotten his magic back, but he couldn't resist entertaining an audience after spending so much time completely alone. "See, I go like this... And like this..." He snapped his fingers. "And then it's gone!" He held up his hands.

Anpiel was definitely smiling now. "That's... impressive..."

"Thank you!" Aziraphale beamed. "I do feel like I'm getting better. I've had a lot of time to practise, after all. I just wish I had more tools. A top hat. Maybe a rabbit, for company..." He looked a little wistfully into the empty space.

"Oh..." Anpiel glanced quickly over her shoulder, then stepped closer, lowering her voice. "How about a pigeon or two? I've been charged with reducing their numbers, so..."

"Really?" Aziraphale clapped his hands together. "That would be marvellous!"

Anpiel looked at him for a moment, still smiling. Then she seemed to pull herself together. "I... I have a message for you. It sounds... It sounds kind of bleak, but he... he hoped you'd understand."

"Ah. Let's hear it, then," Aziraphale said.

"Right... So... He said: ' _When you're through with life_...'." She squirmed a little. "I'm sure he didn't mean anything bad by it..."

"Hold on." Aziraphale took a few steps back to where he'd left the pages with song lyrics, in what he thought might be a central spot of the void. He reverently picked them up and started looking for the line. "I'm not sure I remember this song... Wait, is it the _'care and attention_ ' one? I always approved of that one!"

Anpiel waited quietly while Aziraphale shuffled through the papers.

"Ah, here! _Friends Will Be Friends_. That sounds right, doesn't it?"

"I don't know." Anpiel took a step back. "Maybe." She hurried away.

"Hey, where are you going? Wait! Anpiel! You still have to take my reply!"

But the other angel was gone.

Aziraphale wondered why she'd suddenly been in such a rush. Had she perhaps felt like she was intruding? After all, she was the reason he and Crowley sent their messages in code in the first place. But now that he gave it more thought... What if it wasn't him or Crowley who'd made her so uncharacteristically nervous, but the combination of them? What if the concept of friendship was what freaked her out?

It would make sense. Most of the angels, in Aziraphale's memory, didn't exactly have warm relationships with each other. Of course they loved each other, but that was because they were designed that way. They _weren't_ supposed to love demons, and demons were even less supposed to love them back. And demons _definitely_ weren't supposed to send messages like: ' _When you're through with life and all hope is lost, hold out your hands 'cause friends will be friends—right 'til the end._ '

For a moment, Aziraphale forgot all about Anpiel and smiled, feeling touched.

…

Anpiel was gone quite a long time. When she returned, she was carrying a large white box. Her usually immaculate suit was slightly creased and her bowtie coming undone.

"Did... did the battle begin?" Aziraphale gasped as he saw her.

"Battle? We... The battle was cancelled. You did that, remember?" 

She raised the box to him, and Aziraphale barely had the chance to feel relieved.

"Please don't open this before I'm gone. I think they're rabid. Or possibly possessed."

"They... you... Are those the pigeons?"

She nodded before putting the box on the ground. "Be careful. They're definitely feral."

"That's okay. Thank you. Would you like to stay to... oh, I wish I could offer you a cup of tea..."

"I'd rather not." She didn't take her eyes off the box.

"Those _are_ just pigeons, right?" Aziraphale was almost starting to get nervous, even though he couldn't think of any of God's creatures that would make him so uneasy.

She hesitated a bit too long. "I think so...?"

"Right." Aziraphale gave the box a suspicious glance, but then decided to change the subject. "Did you finish that book you got? About the ducks?"

"Uhm... not yet." She shifted her feet. "I'll let you know. I will definitely be wanting more books. On birds. They are so..." She eyed the box. "Fascinating..."

"Oh." Aziraphale tried not to show his disappointment. Considering the speed with which she'd finished the previous book, he'd expected she wouldn't need long for a short book like _Ducks: And How to Make them Pay_. He'd already prepared his next message to Crowley, but who knew how long it would be before she would take it to him now? "I suppose you must be busy out there."

"Oh yes. Lots of important things to do. Very urgent, some of them…"

"I'll leave you to it then. Get practising." He gestured at the box.

Anpiel nodded and hurried off again.

…

Aziraphale sat watching the rustling box for several minutes before he finally moved towards it. Bored as he was, he’d rather not set some kind of dangerous animal loose in here. If given the choice, he’d rather sit here comfortably while losing his mind to lack of stimulation than have to _run_ all the time.

But surely Anpiel wouldn’t leave him alone with some hellish creature. That kind of torture wouldn’t be a Heavenly practice at all. So… How bad could it be, really?

He should at least take a peek inside the box.

“Go on,” he muttered to himself. “Don’t be a coward and open it. Pip-pip!”

He carefully lifted a corner of the lid… and stared into an orange eye.

There was a flutter of grey next to it.

They were just pigeons after all!

He opened the box further and gently lifted them out one by one.

“Hello,” he greeted the two pigeons. “My name is Aziraphale.”

One of them tilted its head and cooed, while the other scuttled around curiously.

“Would you two mind helping me with some tricks? I promise I won’t leave either of you stuffed in my sleeve for too long.”

…

“Oh, now, Jay, don’t fly away! I _know_ it’s not fair that I don’t have any treats for you, but I’ll really have to be adamant that you sit still. Come on, let’s try this again.” Aziraphale lured the pigeons back towards the box and set up for his trick again. “There you go. Very nice. I really do wonder why Anpiel claimed you two were such menaces. Aren’t you well-behaved? Yes, even you, Anthony!” He petted the head of the pigeon with the slightly more yellow eyes.

Aziraphale heard a sort of squeak behind him.

"Anpiel! Oh, you're just in time to see me make the pigeons disappear."

"You... named them?" She kept her distance.

"Of course," Aziraphale answered. "It would have felt a little impersonal otherwise. And they didn't object to the names I gave them, if you're worried about that."

She might have smiled a little. "They're just birds."

"They're all God's creatures!" Aziraphale chided.

"Right. Do you... Did you have any books on dodos?"

"Dodos?" Aziraphale frowned and Jay made use of his distraction to escape again. "I'm sure I have several books that describe them, and there's always _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ , but... They won't do you much good, dear. There aren't any dodos left on Earth."

"I know. I just want to... know more."

"Well, they _were_ intriguing little things." Aziraphale nodded to himself. "I'll list you some titles if you stay and watch my trick."

“If I must.” Anpiel took half a step backwards. “Go on then.”

“Jay, where did you… Oh, well, it’ll be just Anthony and me, then.” Aziraphale gently picked up the pigeon and opened the white box. “So, as you can see, I’m putting him nicely in here, all cosy… And then I’ll close the box…” He made a complicated gesture with his hands over the lid. “Abracadabra! Of course this always looks better when I have my magic wand.” He winked at Anpiel. “And now… Tadaa!”

He opened the box and showed her that it was empty.

Her expression was slightly underwhelming, but she did offer a polite, brief applause. "You did that with only... human magic?"

"I did!" Aziraphale said proudly. "I can tell you how it works, but I have to warn you it'll take some of the fun away."

"It's okay." She held up both hands as if to physically stop him. "I just need a message from you. If you have one."

“Yes, I do.” Aziraphale smiled. “Thank you for reminding me. That’s very kind. This is what I want you to tell Crowley: ‘ _In this world of cool deception_ ’. Now, as for the dodos…”


	16. Made in Heaven

Aziraphale was alone for a very long time. He’d even taken several naps, just to make the time pass more quickly. It always left him feeling rather sad, because the last few times he’d slept, it had been in Crowley’s bed or car. His friend—his _boyfriend_ —had always been nearby, worrying.

Aziraphale wondered if Anpiel had told the demon any details about his imprisonment. Crowley would probably be relieved to hear that he wasn’t in pain anymore and that there hadn’t been any more experiments with Hellfire, but he rather doubted that Anpiel had spent time on long descriptions. Even though he liked to think she was warming to him a little, she wasn’t exactly chatty.

When he finally heard the first sound in a very long time that wasn’t pigeon-related or part of a harmony, his heart jumped. He almost called out to welcome Anpiel, when he heard a voice that didn’t belong to her. A most _unwelcome_ voice.

Maybe it had been too early to celebrate the lack of Hellfire.

“Ugh! How did those annoying chickens even get in here?”

In a flurry of feathers, Jay and Anthony retreated to the relative safety of Aziraphale’s shoulders.

“No one’s supposed to get in or out except for a select few angels, but no, here they are, the dumb beasts! I’m not even surprised. Anpiel, weren’t you supposed to get rid of them?”

Anpiel’s only reaction was a slight twitch of her eyebrow in Aziraphale’s direction, and he instantly felt a little safer.

“Hello,” he said. “What an… honour. Gabriel.”

“Yeah, look, personally I would have been fine leaving you in here, since you won’t be causing any harm, will you? But it’s been brought to my attention that you’re not becoming any _better_ , either, and I suppose that _was_ the point of bringing you back to Heaven. So… that’s a real shame.”

Aziraphale glanced at Anpiel, but her expression wasn’t telling him anything. “What does that mean?” he asked cautiously.

“It means that if you’d shown any signs of _goodness_ or devotion to God or… or anything, really, rather than practising human deception trickery, I wouldn’t have to look at your face right now.” Gabriel smiled painfully.

“You didn’t exactly give me much _to_ do,” Aziraphale pointed out. 

“We don’t trust you with anything divine,” Gabriel replied.

“Then how exactly was detaining me here going to improve me?” Aziraphale asked. “Wouldn’t it have been much easier for all parties involved to just leave me on Earth?”

“To be further corrupted?” Gabriel asked, giving him an incredulous look. “To _lose_ you to the demons? You’re one of us, Aziraphale, whether you and I like it or not. We invested a lot in you. God gave you a special sword, for Heaven’s sake! You! And how do you thank us? You _desert_ us to go fill your vessel with Her creations after letting humans kill them for you!”

“When you put it like that,” Aziraphale began, but Gabriel held up a hand to silence him.

“I swear, anyone less forgiving than an Archangel like me would probably have given up on you, Aziraphale. They’d have looked for other ways to destroy you after the Hellfire didn’t work. They’d have let you rot. Or stabbed you with a thousand pins. They’d have...”

Anpiel cleared her throat and Gabriel quickly restored his smile.

“But not us. Of course.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale repeated. “Coming up with those acts of vengeance wouldn’t be very angelic, let alone performing them.”

Gabriel glared at him. “As if _you’re_ in a position to tell _me_ how to behave angelically. But we’re going to teach you. We’re going to put you under supervision and remind you what it means to be an angel, starting now.”

“By lecturing me?” 

Anpiel either sneezed or suppressed a snort.

“By any means necessary.” Gabriel’s lips curled into a rather threatening grin. “I’ll leave that up to Anpiel. She was going to go down to Earth, but… she’ll be much better suited to discipline you.”

"And I appreciate the honour of being entrusted with this task. I do not doubt that many others of higher rank and skill than me were passed over on my behalf." It almost looked like Anpiel rolled her eyes as Gabriel turned away and cleared his throat.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” he told Aziraphale. “You’re going to be living among Good Examples again. Be a part of Angelic Society. There will be no more trips outside of Heaven, least of all to Earth. We are not reinstating your powers until you’ve proved _very_ thoroughly that you can be trusted with them. There will be no more slothing and gluttoning about; you’ll actually _work_ like all of us. And if Anpiel reports on you showing any sign of Evil, anything at all, we’re sending you back into the void until we’ve found a more permanent way to… handle our differences.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Aziraphale said.

“It does?” Anpiel mouthed.

“Good.” Gabriel chuckled and then clapped his hands together loudly. The air vibrated and suddenly they were standing in a corridor. Somehow, the brightness of Heaven seemed dusky after the dazzling whiteness of the void, which had often reminded Aziraphale of the headaches of his last days on Earth. He rubbed his eyes and then looked around.

Through two open doors, he could see large open offices where several angels were poking at thin screens or writing elegantly calligraphed notes. The door in front of which he, Gabriel and Anpiel were standing, however, was more narrow, in dull brown wood rather than platinum-framed glass.

“Since you’ve always been out in the field, I don’t think you’ve ever had an office up here. But I’m sure you’ll make yourself at home in the closet,” Gabriel said, opening the door for him to show a cramped space with a crooked little table.

“The closet,” Aziraphale repeated. He refrained from adding: ‘You must be joking.’ 

He knew Gabriel too well for that.

Anpiel must have picked up the white box while they were talking, and now placed it on the table. “Let’s get you settled.”

“Good luck!” Gabriel said. “And remember… Be good.” He stepped onto a Segway and glided away.

Aziraphale waited until he’d disappeared out of view, absent-mindedly petting the two pigeons on his shoulders. Then he stepped into the closet, turned on the tiny lightbulb inside it, and closed the door behind him.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he told Anpiel. “I know you wanted to go study birds, and now you’re stuck up here because of me.”

"It's okay." Anpiel shrugged. "I didn't have much time for the birds anyway. Heaven can be so demanding."

Aziraphale nodded, carefully taking Jay in his hands. "I doubt Gabriel will let me keep the pigeons... It would probably be safest for them if you could send them down to Earth. Perhaps... Perhaps you could take them to Crowley? They can keep him company... I mean." Aziraphale cleared his throat. "Annoy that foul demon with their wiles."

"I'm sure he would find them most aggravating." She smirked at the thought. "But perhaps the birds would be happier in their natural habitat."

"Oh? You mean Trafalgar Square?" Aziraphale smiled.

"Exactly." Anpiel giggled. "I'll take them to your demon. He can decide how to dispose of... I mean, deal with them."

"So..." Aziraphale gestured at the wonky table. "What is it I am supposed to do here, as a respectable member of angelic society?"

"Shoes," Anpiel replied with a crooked smile. "Gabriel wants an index of all the shoes procured and utilised by angels since... Well, ever. Organised by size, colour and style. Or something like that."

Aziraphale blinked. "... Why?"

"He gave a long explanation, but..." She winked. "Mainly I think he just thought it would keep you occupied for a while."

Aziraphale frowned. "I thought I was supposed to prove my goodness. Maybe he wants to look into the ethics of the shoe-makers..."

"Part of being a good angel is following orders. Without asking questions." Anpiel looked down at the box. "Maybe I should take care of the birds and let you get started. The first shipment should be here soon."


	17. Play the Game

“Oh _no_ ,” Aziraphale gasped as he opened the seventy-first shoebox. “Who in Heaven would ever wear _Crocs_?”

He plucked the receipt from between the grass-green abominations and winced. 

“The Quartermaster. I should have known…”

He quickly wrote all the necessary data down in his ledger and slammed the lid back onto the box before putting it on the ‘done’ pile. The small closet was crowded with at least a hundred more shoeboxes to go, and that was only the beginning. At least the shoes weren’t all terrible; Aziraphale had seen a cosy pair of medieval fur-lined boots and he even came across his own shiny court shoes—the ones that had been part of the outfit leading to his imprisonment in the Bastille and the happy memory of crêpes afterwards. For just a moment, he’d considered sneaking them from the pile, but he rather doubted it would be beneficial to Anpiel and Gabriel’s judgement of him. Besides, he didn’t have anywhere to hide them, and an attempt to miracle them out of view only resulted in a few dust specks tarnishing their sheen.

The next box contained a rather enormous pair of Roman sandals. Then there were some very ancient flip flops, stilettos that made Aziraphale wonder how anyone could possibly walk on them without spreading their wings for balance, fancy but very worn brogues, and…

“ _More Crocs_?!” Aziraphale whined in despair.

"Of course," Anpiel answered. "They're the angels among shoes."

Aziraphale turned around with a jolt and stared at her. "They what?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Never mind. How are you settling in?"

“I think I’m doing quite well,” Aziraphale said, gesturing at the pile of shoes he was finished with. “But I just started wondering… Do any of you ever go _home_? Or do you all stay at your office, day and night?”

"Home? What home?"

"Like... Some place where you can just... That you can make your own? Where you won’t have other angels walking in at any moment? Not that I mind your presence," he added quickly. "But it's not exactly... cosy, is it?"

"Well, Azi." She looked around his 'office'. "You're the only one who's even got walls. The rest don't even have cubicles anymore. It's all open offices and... stuff. If you ask me, they've got it better in Hell these days."

Aziraphale couldn't help but smile a little at the nickname. "Would you mind showing me around the offices? I would really enjoy stretching my legs, but I doubt Gabriel would appreciate it if I went wandering around on my own."

Anpiel's shoulders sagged visibly. "Are you sure? I mean, I suppose it would be okay, but it's really nothing but rows and rows of angels at their desks."

"I would really appreciate it," Aziraphale replied. His abilities might have been taken away, but even though there was only a small chance at discovering some kind of escape route, he felt he couldn't waste the opportunity.

"Okay then." Anpiel was about to open the door but paused. "Just... don't mention anything about our deal and... _him_ out there, okay?"

"Of course. I'm grateful you took that risk for me, Anpiel. I won't break your trust."

Anpiel nodded solemnly and finally pushed the door open, stepping aside for Aziraphale to pass.

Once again, he blinked as he entered the corridor, this time because it was so much brighter than his closet. Deciding to lose no time, he walked through the door across.

Only a few of the angels in the open plan office looked up at him. Most stayed focused on their screens, or in some cases, on looking out the windows. Aziraphale wondered what they were studying out there, but decided not to distract them by asking.

After leaving the office again, he and Anpiel walked in silence for a long while, all the way to the wide corridor where planet Earth floated. Four armed angels stood guard around it, and Aziraphale sighed. It was no use planning to use that particular escape route, even if he _would_ manage it without his powers.

“Can you show me _your_ desk?” he asked Anpiel, wishing to get away from the globe before he could try anything stupid, like storming the guards in the full knowledge that it would be futile.

"Well, I..." Anpiel straightened her waistcoat, put her hands in her pockets and looked at her shoes. "I don't really have my own spot. All the angels who do turns on Earth share an area. We have two desks and four chairs and stuff. But I don't really use it. Except for writing memos."

"Oh." Aziraphale frowned. "Well, if you ever do need a desk, you're welcome to borrow my table."

"I'd like that." Anpiel's smile was small but genuine. "Some of the others are a bit too... much..."

“I can imagine. What about the Archangels? Do _they_ have their own offices?”

" _Office_!"

Aziraphale literally jumped and then pressed a hand to his chest as he turned around to the source of the voice. "Michael! Hello!"

"Hello, Aziraphale." Michael looked him up and down, then turned to Anpiel. "Why is he not working?" they asked.

"Oh, well, he..." Anpiel cleared her throat. "He needed to be reminded of the unity and diligence of the Heavenly workforce. Isn't that why he's here?"

Michael's expression grew several degrees colder. "I suppose it is. But I was led to believe that he would be confined to his own... office. I am not sure I approve of him out and about. Unrestrained."

"Oh, I'm hardly going to attack anyone." As Aziraphale spoke the words, he remembered there might be advantages to the other angels being afraid of him, whether it came to him naturally or not. "That is to say," he added quickly, "if they're not giving me good reason to."

"And I'm not going to dump you back into the void," Michael countered, "if you're not giving me a reason to do it."

Anpiel tugged on Aziraphale's sleeve. "Come on. I think the next shipment of shoes is due soon."

"In a moment, dear." Aziraphale frowned at Michael. "So forgiveness is no longer _bon ton_ in Heaven?"

"We forgive the penitent." They smirked. "Do you repent?"

"For not letting you guys destroy the beautiful work of art that is Earth, and all of God's creatures, over an old feud?" Aziraphale huffed, gesturing towards the globe.

Anpiel crossed her arms. The way she glared at Michael made it seem like she was almost on his side in this.

Michael huffed. "Yes. That."

"Well, guess!’" Aziraphale said, before turning away in the direction of his closet.

…

"After you," Aziraphale said as he opened the door to the closet, and while Anpiel passed him, he noticed the most peculiar expression on her face. She was staring at him with wide eyes, as if she couldn’t quite believe he was real, and was somehow happy and slightly in awe.

"I'll probably regret that," Aziraphale felt obliged to say, closing the door behind them.

Anpiel's smile wilted. "I hope not. It was... It was kind of fun seeing someone stand up to them. They don't get that a lot here... Actually, they just don't. Ever."

Aziraphale sighed and gestured at the walls around them. "You see what it gets you."

“Privacy?”

Aziraphale smiled. “Weren’t you supposed to be a good example to me?”

"I don't remember that being part of the job description." Anpiel's innocent smile wasn't entirely convincing.

"In that case..." Aziraphale leaned in and lowered his voice. "Did you get another message when you went to Earth?"

Anpiel's eyes flickered. "Oh... No. I'm sorry. There wasn't enough time."

"Oh." Aziraphale felt his smile fall. "Did he... did he like the pigeons?"

"Yes... well... He was happy you thought of him..."

Aziraphale paused. She was back to her morose self. But it still didn't seem like her to be so afraid of the mere thought of Crowley. What if there was another reason?

What if she hadn't brought the Queen lyrics to Heaven for _Aziraphale's_ sake?

And suddenly it all clicked. What if, in fact, she fancied Crowley?

Aziraphale couldn't blame her, considering he knew all too well how lovable the demon was. It would explain her sudden awkwardness after first meeting him. After all, she had been carrying messages of love between them. If she had realised that was what they were, it meant Aziraphale had put her in a nasty position.

"It's quite alright," he assured her. "I suppose I shouldn't spend more time on composing messages anyway, now that I have received a Heavenly task."

"Yeah..." she muttered. "I can't bring them for you anyway."

"Right." Aziraphale studied her. "Will you miss... Earth?"

"Parts of it, I suppose." Anpiel shrugged. "But I am needed here."

"Yes. And I'm glad you're around," Aziraphale said.

Only later, when he'd returned to sorting out shoes, did he wonder if he was only glad because he'd grown fond of Anpiel's company. It could be advantageous to him that Anpiel didn't get to spend more time with Crowley. He was _his_ boyfriend, after all.

And yet, Aziraphale didn't think he was jealous. When he imagined Anpiel talking to Crowley, perhaps even awkwardly letting hints drop about her feelings, he didn't mind. For one, Crowley had known Aziraphale for much longer. They were each other's best friend, and a bond like that wasn't easily broken. And even if Crowley were to return Anpiel's affection, Aziraphale was confident that the demon, who managed to love all human children as well as all snakes, would have enough love left in him for two angels. If need be. 

Besides, Anpiel was the closest thing Aziraphale had to a friend up here. He wouldn't gain anything by avoiding her. In fact, liking Crowley could be something they had in common. So he'd be careful not to bring it up—knowing from experience how hard it could be to acknowledge your feelings for someone who was supposed to be The Enemy—and behave well, in the hope that both he and Anpiel would eventually be allowed to visit Earth and see their friend again.


	18. Spread Your Wings

It was an oddly peaceful day in Trafalgar Square.

In Heaven, however, all hell had broken loose.

"OUT!" Sandalphon screamed as he burst through the door.

So much for privacy.

Aziraphale slowly set down the single hotel slipper he'd been inspecting. "Is there a problem?"

"You could say that!" Sandalphon gestured wildly for Aziraphale to leave the closet, looking like pure distress had been poured into an angelic shape. "It's the pigeons!"

"The pigeons?" Aziraphale repeated, worried thoughts flashing to Jay and Anthony. Had Anpiel lied to him and left them in Heaven after all?

"There's a whole flock of them! We don't know how they got in this time, but they're _everywhere_. We are temporarily repurposing your office to contain them. I suppose you can take a few hours off."

"Perhaps I can help," Aziraphale said as he backed out of the closet. "I've got some experience with pigeo—" 

The door slammed in his face.

He frowned and cleared his throat. "Never mind…"

He looked around, wondering if he would manage to explore and find some kind of exit this time. A tall angel pushed him out of the way, rushing after a small, brown pigeon and muttering a few words that suspiciously sounded like curses.

"Looks like somebody left the door open." Anpiel was leaning against a desk, her hands in her pockets and wearing a very smug smile.

Aziraphale had to blink twice. Realising that she might _like_ Crowley had been one thing, but her taking over his mannerisms like that... It might be more than his poor heart could take.

Only then did the meaning of her words really reach his brain. "Are you implying you know who's responsible?"

"I might..." She giggled and pushed off the desk, signalling for him to follow. "Come on. Let's get out of their way."

She led him to a stairwell, but before Aziraphale could get excited about escape routes, she stopped.

"Don't go too far this way," she said, pointing down. "These only lead to one place and you're better off here."

"Oh." Aziraphale frowned. "Just like that? There isn't some kind of barrier on this side?"

"There are guards, but they're otherwise occupied right now." Anpiel shrugged innocently and then held up a small basket. "I thought we'd take advantage."

Aziraphale stared at the basket, which had come out of nowhere. "Is that... What... Are those..." he stammered.

"Just some nibbles... He... He said you'd like them."

"You... you talked to Crowley about picnics?" Aziraphale's voice went up higher than he liked.

"Yeah, we uhm..." She was definitely blushing now. "We talked about things to do on Earth and he... mentioned it."

"I see." The only reason Crowley went on picnics, as far as Aziraphale was aware, was that Aziraphale thought they were marvellous. An adventure on which they could enjoy both nature and food.

And yet, Crowley had shared that with an angel he barely knew and most probably distrusted? Perhaps he'd come to like the picnics more than he'd let on. Or perhaps he really missed Aziraphale _that_ much.

Or, perhaps, he liked Anpiel enough to want to take _her_ on a picnic...

He shook his head. Whatever the reason, he wouldn't let it diminish his enjoyment of this rare opportunity. He sat down on one of the grey steps across from the mirror on the white wall and patted the spot beside him.

"Let's see what we've got," he said, eagerly opening the basket, and then gasped. 

Inside the basket were two boxes in bamboo. 

“ _Bento_?” Aziraphale whispered, and as he opened one of them, his guess turned out to be correct. It was the most neatly filled example he’d ever seen, and it contained several of his favourites.

“Is that what they’re called?” Anpiel failed to look entirely aloof.

Aziraphale nodded. “Did he… Did he give them to you?”

“No… Just told me how to get them.”

“They’re perfect.” Aziraphale reverently plucked a set of chopsticks from the basket and picked up a piece of pickled cucumber, but paused before he put it in his mouth. “Thank you, Anpiel.”

Anpiel looked away and muttered something that sounded like “you’re welcome”.

…

Aziraphale was utterly bored of shoes. Currently he was wishing he could be sorting out bow ties. Or even better, books! Anything other than shoes. After uncountable pairs, they had most definitely become his least favourite piece of clothing.

"You look glum," Anpiel remarked, leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed. "Did you get to Barachiel's slippers? Heard he didn't take them off for five centuries."

"No... Though Jophiel's sandals don't exactly smell like flowers, either." Aziraphale sighed and put the sandals down on the table. "I'm beginning to wonder if this really is better than being in the void. I... I wish I could just go home."

Anpiel's smile faded. "Yeah... I'm sorry." She paused, then brightened up. "Well, at least you're no longer the only discorporatee around here. My... our replacement just came back. Way ahead of schedule."

"They did?" Aziraphale frowned. "What happened?"

"Apparently the Earth manual has not been updated since before traffic lights were a thing."

“Oh no,” Aziraphale groaned. "How difficult can it be?"

Anpiel shrugged. "I guess red is Dumah's favourite colour. Or they're just _dumb, eh_?"

Aziraphale couldn't suppress a giggle. "Sounds like they really touched a nerve with the parrot issue, didn't they?"

"The what?" Anpiel walked over to the pile of unprocessed shoes and picked up a box. "Wow, these are nice. I wonder who has such good taste..." She turned over the box and rolled her eyes. "Of course... Gabriel..."

"The parrot issue," Aziraphale repeated. "Did Dumah even have the chance to meet one?"

Anpiel stared at him, then blinked. "Uhm... I... I don't think so. I mean, they were in Mexico, and I guess there are parrots there, but they were only there for like an hour or two. In the city."

"Oh, that's a shame," Aziraphale said. "But I suppose it's not too late to win your argument. Will they return?"

"Well, they lost their body and there's gonna be a lot of paperwork, so it will probably be a while." Anpiel giggled. "The Quartermaster is not happy."

"I can imagine." Aziraphale smiled. "Maybe they should reassign me to give lectures about Earth life..."

"Yeah... I don't really see that happening. But I do think it's time I took you on another escorted walk around Heaven. You need to actually be around the other angels to soak up their good influence, right?" She offered Aziraphale her arm with a playful wink.

"Are you sure?" Aziraphale gestured at the arm, remembering how Anpiel hadn't even shaken his hand back at the bookshop. Had she really grown comfortable enough around him to suggest something like this?

Anpiel hesitated. "I... I was told not to let you wander around freely. Would you... would you prefer shackles? Or a leash?"

"Oh, goodness, no." Aziraphale willed himself not to blush and gently hooked his arm behind hers. "I just don't want you to be uncomfortable."

"Anything for duty." Anpiel flashed him a crooked smile. "Though I suppose you never saw it that way." She winked.

…

As they leisurely strolled past the offices, Aziraphale found it hard to pay attention to the other angels—or indeed any sort of escapeways. Anpiel had become so different. At first, she’d been as distant as any other angel, or perhaps even more. But now… Now she was _kind_. Their staircase picnic earlier had been lovely, even when Aziraphale had finished both bento boxes. The food had been delicious as ever, though not as fulfilling as when he’d had a body. They’d only returned to his closet long after the screaming and running had stopped—after all, Anpiel had reasoned, they’d have to make his office pigeon-free again before he could continue his work. And today she was disregarding her own touch repulsion for Aziraphale’s sake. Why would she have hidden that pure _goodness_ inside of her, back when they first met? What was the point?

Even as his thoughts were occupied, Aziraphale noticed that very few of the other angels seemed to be _doing_ much. Sure, some of them seemed engaged in surveillance work on thin, bright screens, and others were tapping away at ethereal keyboards. But for all of Gabriel’s talk of Aziraphale’s ‘slothing’, an awful lot of them seemed to be _pondering_ , or rather, staring into space with their eyes glazed over.

“Do you think anyone else is sorting out other pieces of clothing?” he whispered to Anpiel. “Or will that be up to me after I’m done with the shoes?”

“I think that will be your job. I’m pretty sure the whole thing was invented just for you.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale sighed. “I figured as much. And I suppose Gabriel is _just_ creative enough to keep me safely occupied for the rest of eternity.”

"Probably." Anpiel gave his hand a soft pat. "But it's still better than the void. Isn't it?"

Aziraphale smiled at her. “Definitely.”

"Though I suppose you're used to a bit more action down..."

"Are you making fun of me?

Anpiel squeaked and spun around to face the speaker: a tall, gangly angel with fine, wavy platinum hair. "Wha...what?" she gasped.

"I heard you've been telling stories." The angel glared at her. "I didn't just walk into traffic. I was pushed!"

"Really?" Aziraphale stared at Dumah, a little shocked. "By whom? Why?"

"I don't know." Dumah scoffed. "My view was blocked by the lorry. But I'm assuming it was some kind of demon."

"Right." Anpiel tugged on Aziraphale's arm. "Earth is a dangerous place."

Aziraphale hesitated. "A demon..." Surely Crowley had nothing to do with it. Dumah had been in Mexico, and not even for long enough that Crowley could have found out. Right? And even then, he wouldn't be silly enough to go taking revenge on Heaven's representatives. He would know better than to risk the wrath of Heaven. Right??

"When will you be going back?" he asked Dumah. Perhaps Anpiel would be able to drop them off and pop into Crowley's place to remind him not to get himself in trouble?

"Well, not like this, obviously." Dumah held up their hand and stared at them through the palm.

"Right!" Anpiel nodded. "So you'll be... getting a new one?"

"If I can get Raguel to put the right stamp on Form 137-56 so Jerahmiel will let me into the Storage. But he insists the form is supposed to be daisy white, not porcelain. So either he's getting senile or Simiel in requisitions messed up. Again."

"Do you mean there are bodies in Storage?" Aziraphale asked, his full focus returning to Dumah rather than his thoughts of Crowley.

"Where else would we keep them? Under our desks?" With a final glare, Dumah pushed past them and stalked off.

Aziraphale just stood staring into nothingness for a too-long moment. Bodies!

In Heaven, just like that, ready to be sto... Well, acquired.

Having a body would most definitely facilitate his return to Earth. He wasn't exactly keen on the prospect of trying a new model after six thousand years, but at least it was better than having to bother Madame Tracy. Especially after he'd experienced from up close how she felt about Sergeant Shadwell. Aziraphale had shuddered every time he'd come up with an escape plan that involved possessing her again, no matter how nice she'd been about the whole thing.

Suddenly he became aware of the way Anpiel was looking at him.

"So sorry," he said. "I was rather impressed by Dumah. Wonderful to meet them. Really commendable how resilient they are. Finding the strength to return after such a traumatic event."

Somehow, his words didn't seem to appease Anpiel.

"Huh?" she said, blinking.

"I know you two don't agree on the parrot matter, but Dumah really sets an example, don't they," Aziraphale rambled on.

Anpiel frowned at him. "What are you talking about? They're an idiot!"

"Even idiots have qualities of value," Aziraphale reminded her. Like certain very valuable information... He cleared his throat. "Does Heaven still organise team building activities these days?"

"I... think so."

Aziraphale nodded slowly. Something that would keep all of the angels busy would be perfect to be able to check out Storage. He just needed to find out when such an opportunity would arise.

Their walk was over rather quickly after that, and Anpiel seemed too preoccupied to make conversation. However, this time Aziraphale didn’t mind returning to the closet. Now that he had a more concrete plan, figuring out how he would get home was a lot more appealing. Maybe he would buy flowers on his way to surprise Crowley. Or a nice houseplant…


	19. Stone Cold Crazy

_Some time ago on Earth..._

He had lost Aziraphale on a Monday. So Crowley took to lighting black candles in the windows of the bookshop every Monday morning and keeping the place open until they had all burned down and gone out by themselves.

The only customer who, to his knowledge, had noticed was Professor Gurmani. On the third occasion he had lit the candles, and most weeks since then, she had brought him a potted plant to ‘brighten up the place’. He took special care to find an appropriate place for each of them and never threatened or yelled at them, but would carry on a constant monologue when he was alone in the shop, telling them his thoughts, ideas and, particularly on the days the candles were lit, memories of the angel. They were the most thriving and lustrous of all his plants. He felt marginally resentful about that.

It was a grey, soggy and candleless day when he was distracted from his cataloguing of the bottom shelf of 17th century comedia nueva when he heard the door opening with decidedly more vigour than was usually displayed by the type of people who frequented antique book shops.

He straightened up just enough to look over the armchair that stood between him and the door and frowned. Where had he seen that woman before?

A second later, he was crouching on the back of the chair, hissing and spitting at her, a silver pen knife clutched in his hand. “Get out! You have no right to come in here… you _Virtue_!”

She paused a few steps away and held up her hands to show that _she_ was not armed. “Relax, demon. I’m not here to fight. I just need a book.”

Crowley backed up so he was kneeling in the seat of the chair, keeping its back between them while glaring at her. “You’re not getting any of his books. Never!”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “He said I could have it. Besides…” She put her hands on her hips, cocked her head and smirked. “What are _you_ doing here? I have been searching all over London for you to make you open the shop for me, and then I find you here? Isn’t this _his_ shop?”

Crowley waved off her taunt or whatever it was supposed to be as he got to his feet. “ _He said_ … So you’ve talked to him? How is he?” He put the knife down and took a hesitant step closer. “What did he say?”

The angel cleared her throat. “Yes, I’ve seen him. He is very bored. But otherwise, I suppose he could be considered okay…”

“So they lifted the curse or… whatever that was?” Crowley had to force himself to take a step back, having gotten so close he could not really see her face.

“Well, his body was failing and now he no longer has one, so… yeah.”

“Right…” Crowley’s hand were making strangling motions of their own volition and he forced them into his pockets as he stalked over to the counter and turned on his computer. “And why did he agree to give you a book?”

He hissed as she stepped closer and only relaxed when she stopped.

“I agreed to bring you a message.”

“A message?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“It doesn’t really make any sense.”

“Not to you, obviously. You’re just a stupid angel. Let me have it.” He held out a demanding hand, but rather than offer him a letter or note, she folded her hands in front of her and recited:

“He said: ‘ _Whatever comes of you and me…_ ’.”

Somebody turned up the volume in Crowley’s head and he staggered. The angel was speaking again, probably about her bloody book. He tossed his glasses aside and gave her his best demonic glare.

“Get out!” he roared. “OUT!!!”

…

“... _I’d love to leave my memory with you…_ ” Crowley sobbed for the hundredth time and reached for a new bottle. He did not know how long he had been sitting on the floor behind the counter, but the room had gone dark and the sound of traffic outside had died away.

He sniffed and laughed through his tears. “Oh, angel…”

It wasn’t so much the message itself that had broken him. It was the fact that he had gotten a message at all. That Aziraphale, his brilliant, perfect, silly angel, trapped up there in Heaven, had found a way to send him any kind of message. That he had wanted to. Crowley emptied half the bottle in one go. Of course he wanted to. Crowley could not doubt that Aziraphale really cared for him after the things they’d said, but still… there was a difference between knowing and _knowing_ …

If only he could talk to him. If you could pray directly to a specific angel. If a demon could even pray…

He supposed he might get that other angel to take a message back. If he could find her again.

He slowly got to his feet, grabbing the counter for support as his legs wobbled dangerously. Now where had he left his glasses? He looked around the shop and then froze as he noticed the dark silhouette looming right outside the door.

“Wha’!?” He staggered over and struggled a bit with the lock before opening the door. “Have you been here the entire... _burp_... time?”

“You didn’t give me the book.” The angel glared at him. “That was the deal. I gave you the message, you give me the book.” When Crowley hesitated, she pushed past him and strode through the shop with a confidence that made him want to throttle her. How did she know where it was?

He followed her. “He let you take one of his books? In exchange for that one message?”

She nodded, already scanning the index. “I guess it was important to him.”

Crowley withdrew to his chair, fuming as he watched her read.

“Don’t you have to get back or something?” he asked after what must have been a minor aeon.

“Not yet.” She turned a page slowly. At least she had the decency to treat the book with some respect. “Why?” She looked up at him. “You want me to just take the book and go?”

He definitely wanted to get rid of her. But he did not like the thought of her taking the book out of the shop. And she _had_ brought him the first news of Aziraphale he’d had in ages.

“How… How is he?” he asked, ignoring the sudden tightening in his chest.

"I already told you," she said. "Bored and discorporeal."

“What have they done to him?” Crowley tried not to think of fire. Steel. To not picture Aziraphale plummeting into the pit.

“Nothing as far as I know.” She closed the book. “They’re just containing him. Keeping him out of trouble.”

This made Crowley laugh, though it was a bitter, harsh sound.

“I suppose I’m the trouble they want to keep him safe from.”

“You’re part of it, yes. But to be honest, I think they see Earth and humanity as the real root of the problem. You are just a symptom.”

She seemed insultingly unimpressed with his hiss.

“They’ve changed policy, anyway,” she said. “So you won’t be getting a new adversary. Or partner, or whatever. They’re sending us down here in shifts from now on. So there won’t be time for this place to corrupt us. Or whatever it was that happened to him.”

Crowley fell silent, turning her words over in his mind. After a moment, the angel went back to reading.


	20. You Don’t Fool Me

Now and then, a low-ranked angel came by to pick up the newest parts of Aziraphale’s shoe registry and replace the finished boxes with new ones. They never stayed to chat and always looked a bit nervous, however reassuring Aziraphale tried to be—after all, it wasn’t _their_ fault he was in Heaven. The last three times, Aziraphale had sent a request along with the registry. After giving the matter a lot of thought, he had come to the conclusion that his only option was to request access to Storage in the official way—but in hindsight, explaining that he needed it because he thought he might have misfiled a pair of stingray leather oxfords had clearly been a mistake.

It was no surprise that his first request hadn’t been successful; after all, Aziraphale had simply written it on a piece of paper, trying to stick to what he remembered the actual form looked like, and failing atrociously. However, although it was refuted for not being on the correct form, being helpful was still in Heaven’s corporate policy. That meant that the right piece of paper had been added to the envelope and Aziraphale was able to make a second, more promising attempt.

It returned with Gabriel’s scrawl in all-caps in the margin: ‘ _GOOD ANGELS DON’T MAKE MISTAKES._ ’

Well, bugger. He really should have come up with something more… divine.

No use crying over spilled milk. Especially not without his celestial skills.

So he’d sent the file back again, adding a note pointing out that he wasn’t sure he _had_ made an error, but that he would rather like to check, so he could take responsibility in case something had slipped past him.

He hadn’t received a reply yet. And Anpiel hadn’t been over as often as in the beginning; Aziraphale wondered if she’d been reprimanded. So he was in a rather gloomy mood when someone knocked on his door, and it didn’t improve when he saw it was the Quartermaster.

"Who would have thought that the most sloppy, irresponsible disaster ever deployed on Earth could turn into such a conscientious, thorough little worker bee." The angel smirked. "It almost seems like a... miracle."

“Hello, Quartermaster.” Aziraphale forced his face into a painful smile. “How can I help you?”

The Quartermaster held up Aziraphale's latest request. "And here I thought you wanted _my_ help."

"Oh!" This time, Aziraphale's smile was more genuine. "Yes, I do. Thank you! You see, I know it's ever so silly of me, but I just couldn't let this pass..."

"I'm sure you couldn't. And do not worry, I will see to it that Gabriel hears of your devotion." The Quartermaster signalled for Aziraphale to follow him.

As they walked, Aziraphale clenched his hands together in front of his stomach, barely able to hide his excitement. It had worked! He’d gained access to Storage, and now he’d only have to distract the Quartermaster and take possession of a body. He wouldn’t have the luxury of being picky, but he’d had enough time to prepare himself for that. And then… Then he supposed he’d run. All the way down the stairs if he had to. Perhaps Hell marked its exits a little better… 

"Here you are." The Quartermaster opened a heavy door and stood aside for him to enter. "The records are to the right, but I think if you go straight ahead for a couple of rows, you'll find what you're really looking for."

“Wonderful! I’m ever so grateful for the chance to set right my wrongs,” Aziraphale said, hurrying in the indicated direction.

There weren’t any shoes.

Instead, he walked right into an aisle with what looked like large, metal clothing racks on both sides. But they did not hold clothes; the hangers held dozens upon dozens of mostly humanoid bodies with wide, velcro straps under their arms.

He barely had the chance to honour his millennia of living among humans through being shocked that they were all naked, before he spotted a very familiar body whose hanger had been turned so it was facing him in the middle of the row.

“That’s… That’s me!” he gasped.

“Why, so it is.”

Aziraphale jumped and suddenly found the Quartermaster standing right behind him.

“I guess technically it’s a body of the same model as the one you formerly possessed,” he said, stepping past Aziraphale to nudge the vessel back into line. “But I can see why you might feel a certain… attachment to it.”

“But… I thought it was broken,” Aziraphale said. “I didn’t know it would be… recycled.”

“Oh, it’s not the actual body you had. It’s just a copy. We always keep a few spares around. Just in case…” The Quartermaster let his eyes travel down the line of bodies. “Creation is such a laborious process, after all.”

“I see.” Aziraphale couldn’t stop staring at his own profile. Well, not his own, obviously… But it was still his form. The body he’d grown so used to, minus a few small tweaks he’d implemented through the years. Right there, ready for him to inhabit…

“As you can see, it is well taken care of,” the Quartermaster said, smirking at Aziraphale. “Not only is a special key needed to release it from its holding, but the entire storage facility is very well protected. We are very thorough.”

“I see.” Aziraphale wrung his hands to keep himself from squirming. “Isn’t that a little odd? What kind of angel would unlawfully enter a place like this?” His laugh sounded entirely too nervous.

“A disobedient one, perhaps. One who had suffered disciplinary discorporation, for example. Someone desperate.”

“I… I filed the paperwork!” Aziraphale’s voice was almost a squeak. “I only wanted to check on those shoes!”

“Of course.” The Quartermaster gestured for Aziraphale to follow him. “Let’s find those pesky things.”

Aziraphale wished he could at least have swallowed to calm his nerves.

…

Things hadn’t looked this bleak since Doomsday. And then Crowley had been around to save the day. 

The plan Aziraphale had thought so clever had backfired outrageously. If only he’d tried something else first. Something secret that wouldn’t have led to a fellow angel seeing right through his scheme. But no, he had to go and waste all his chances at once. Perhaps he should consider himself lucky that the Quartermaster didn’t pass up on pointing out exactly how obvious his request had been before Aziraphale could make even more of a fool of himself. 

Being back in his closet was a torment so horrible that Hell would be proud (or, possibly, jealous for not coming up with it themselves). The knowledge that his own, familiar body was _right there_ kept intruding on his thoughts, but it was no use. The Quartermaster had even pointed out several security measures on their way out, so even if Aziraphale would make it all the way to Storage without anyone spotting him…

He almost threw the pair of boots he was registering in yet another fit of pique. Why couldn’t they just have left him alone?

On the other hand, _being_ alone wasn’t exactly helpful right now. He found himself wishing he could have the pigeons back, so he could at least have talked to them. The shoes weren’t quite as receptive, and he didn’t want to give any pair of Gabriel’s the pleasure of hearing how desperate he felt.


	21. Breakthru

It was like the pigeons again. Only much worse. Even through the closed door of Aziraphale's closet, he could not miss the shouts and sounds of pounding feet. There was the flapping of wings too, but... larger.

He got to his feet and reached for the door handle. Should he go and check? Or stay out of the way? As he hesitated, the door was torn open and Anpiel, looking flushed and out of breath, grinned at him. 

"Come on!" she gasped. "I don't know how long we've got." She turned on her heel and ran.

Aziraphale stared at her back for a second, and then rushed after her.

In all the excitement they were unlikely to draw any attention. Everyone seemed to be running, though only few of the angels seemed to be as certain of their direction as Anpiel and therefore Aziraphale. Most of them were in fact scurrying or indeed flapping about as aimlessly as the very pigeons that had caused the previous panic.

But Anpiel... She went straight in the direction of Storage.

"Back to your desks!" the Quartermaster's voice cut through the din, and for a second Aziraphale thought they had been caught. But the Quartermaster seemed to be addressing everybody. Not that they paid him any heed.

"What’s going on?" Aziraphale gasped as he caught up with Anpiel, who was moving surprisingly fast, even for an angel.

"I'll explain later," she panted. "The guards have been called away and all surveillance will be focused on the Gates for the moment. But it won't last. You need to get in and out quickly. I'll watch the door."

She skidded to a halt under the Storage sign and handed him a key.

“There’s… There’s an alarm…” Aziraphale pointed at the small box above the door where lights had been blinking when the Quartermaster had shown it to him. Only then did he notice that they weren’t on now. 

“Oh. But… What do you… Why?” Aziraphale stammered.

Anpiel rolled her eyes. " _Move_ , angel."

Aziraphale felt a little lost as he entered Storage. Aside from the bit of light that fell in through the open door, it was mostly dark, making the rows of dangling bodies even creepier than when he’d first seen them.

"Let there be light," he whispered, before realising that obviously wouldn't work without his powers. As he found his way through the half-dark, he replayed his conversations with Anpiel in his mind. Had she ever expressed a wish to own something that would be found in Storage? Something he was supposed to get for her now? Nothing came up, however hard he thought, so the only possible conclusion was that she’d really brought him here to retrieve his body. But why? Why would she help him with an illegal acquisition?

He’d arrived at the right row and fortunately spotted his body right away. Considering the key Anpiel had handed him, he started looking for a lock, but couldn’t make out anything aside from the velcro straps. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, he reached out and patted the body down. Still nothing. But the Quartermaster had talked about a special key to release it, so there had to be a lock _somewhere_. Aziraphale pushed the bodies next to it to the side and turned his corporation around a few times. Bugger-all.

However, when he undid the straps and tried to take the body from the hook, he met some resistance. Carefully, he turned the vessel around again to see why he couldn’t take it off, and now he saw a wire of shimmery metal coming out of a clasp attached to the body’s neck, connecting it to the rack. An anti-theft device. 

As he was holding up the body with both hands, it was awkward to get the key from his pocket and feel around for the lock, so he actually had to strap it up again in a position that he could still reach the clasp. He gasped as he heard something in the distance, fearing his time was up, but when he looked around, he only saw three bird-shaped shadows flutter through the entrance. Pigeons?

Well, at least they wouldn’t tell on him. He turned his attention back to fumbling with the clasp, but still didn’t see any obvious slots that the key would fit into. Desperate, he started poking the key against it on every side, and suddenly there was a soft click and the body’s head dropped to its chin. He did it!

“Just like those magnetic strips that are always making alarms go off in shops,” he marvelled. Crowley had taken credit for them, and Aziraphale had never quite understood why Hell hadn’t objected to a device that _prevented_ crime, even if it was dreadfully annoying. 

He undid the straps again and hoisted the body over his shoulder. It was weird to walk with himself pushing about an inch into his discorporated, slightly transparent form, but he didn’t linger on the thought and rushed back to Anpiel.

And then he realised he had no idea what to do next.

“What now?” he demanded, feeling slightly manic. “Do you know a safe way out?”

"The way we came in?" Anpiel could not take her eyes off Aziraphale's spare body. "And then store it in the closet?" She hesitated, then held up a white blanket. "Better cover it up."

"Right." Aziraphale threw the blanket over the body. "But I meant a way out of Heaven. I can't just... What if someone enters the closet and finds it?"

"I don't know! What do you want from me? Miracles?" Anpiel hissed. "One step at a time. Come on, let's go." She peeked around the corner and then ran, gesturing for him to follow.

"Oh, dear," Aziraphale whined. For some reason, he'd trusted that Anpiel would know what to do next. Now he was seriously starting to doubt that getting the body had been a good idea. If anyone caught them, it would just get harder to retrieve it again. If he wasn’t banished to the void again, this time for eternity...

But the chance of getting caught would only grow bigger if he kept dithering here, and putting the body back where he'd found it would feel silly. So he ran after Anpiel, and then squeaked when Sandalphon came running straight in their direction.

"Anpiel!" Aziraphale gasped. "We need to hide!"

"Over here!" Anpiel grabbed Aziraphale's arm and pulled him towards the nearest desk. "Shove it under. Quickly."

"But... we can't just _leave_ it..." Aziraphale protested.

"I won't. Just get it in there!"

Aziraphale carefully lowered the body from his shoulder and then quickly straightened up, trying to look neutral.

Anpiel stuck her hands in her pockets, leaned against the desk and began whistling shakily. 

“Sandalphon!” Aziraphale called out, in a panicked attempt to go unnoticed by drawing attention.

“Aziraphale. What are you doing here?” Sandalphon narrowed his eyes.

“I… I was looking for you! You see… I observed something when I was going through the shoes. I wanted to ask you if it was intentional.”

“There’s an emergency going on. And you’re out of your office.” Sandalphon squinted even more. “You must be up to something…”

“No, no, don’t be silly. Not that you would ever be silly.” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “It’s just, I heard all the ruckus out here, so I went to take a look, you know, under Anpiel’s supervision, so it’s perfectly safe, and then I saw you running, and I realised I simply _must_ know the answer.”

“To what’s going on?” Sandalphon asked suspiciously. “Because I swear, if you do have anything to do with this…”

“The sandals!” Aziraphale squeaked, throwing a quick glance at Sandalphon’s fists, making sure they were well out of range of where his stomach used to be. “Sandals. You’re not wearing them. I noticed and I assume it has to do with your name and… I thought it was quite clever. Subversive, so to speak.”

“I’m not a _rebel_ ,” Sandalphon spat out.

“No! Of course not. I meant it in a good way. Like, I assume you meant it as a little joke, to avoid sandals even back when they were all the fashion. Like… Like your clever little phrase at my bookshop, about not having a war without War…”

The suspicion melted away from Sandalphon’s expression, which turned smug. “Yes. That _was_ quite good. Would you believe Gabriel gave me an official commendation for it?”

“Quite deserved!” Aziraphale exclaimed, nodding encouragingly, before glancing from the corner of his eye to check where Anpiel had gone. “It really was… quite something.”

Anpiel, who was dragging his body towards a corridor on the other side of the office, gestured he should get Sandalphon out of the way.

“Look!” Aziraphale said, taking a few steps and pointing out of the nearest glass door.

“What is it?” Sandalphon asked, following him and opening the door.

“I thought I saw Gabriel,” Aziraphale said. “Looking for you.”

Sandalphon frowned and looked back at him. “Gabriel isn’t here. He’s trying to… I mean, he’s taking control of the situation.”

“Oh. I must have been mistaken.” Aziraphale shuffled through the door, desperately tamping down his panic. “But I’m quite sure I heard someone call your name…”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

There was a loud shout and a thunder of running footsteps.

“Well, nothing like my name,” Sandalphon corrected, looking annoyed.

“It seems to be quite a crisis,” Aziraphale remarked, suddenly realising the angels must all be running _somewhere_. They could lead him to a way out! “Can I help with anything?”

“Good grief, no. You’re staying here. I don’t want to be watching over _you_ when we already have half the population of human souls running rampant!”

Aziraphale blinked. “You do?”

“Ugh. Go back to your closet,” Sandalphon snarled, and then he joined the herd of angels rushing past the door.

After waiting a few seconds to make sure he was really gone, Aziraphale turned around to find that Anpiel had disappeared out of view. She wasn’t in the corridor, either, so he figured it would be safest if he did indeed return to the closet. 

Anpiel was inside, shoving a stack of shoeboxes to the side.

“No!” Aziraphale cried out. “There’s a system! I need to know which ones I’ve already filed!”

“We need to hide you," Anpiel hissed. "The spare you, I mean."

"I... I suppose you're right." Only now did Aziraphale notice the white sheet behind the stacks of boxes, from which part of a familiar hand was sticking out. "This feels so strange..."

"I can imagine." Anpiel sighed.

"Do you think anyone would notice if I just... entered it?" Aziraphale gestured at the body.

"I'm pretty sure they would. Is it worth the risk?"

"I suppose not." Aziraphale wrung his hands. "It's just quite tempting, having it here. But I don't even want to imagine how they would punish me. Us."

"Yeah, we... we gotta get out of here." Anpiel shifted nervously. "Get you out of here, I mean. You _and_ your body."

Aziraphale nodded. “I’m sorry, Anpiel. For whining about having to wait longer, when… When you’ve risked so much for me. I really am grateful. And… a little confused as to why you are doing this for me.”

"Uhm, because... Because it is what Crowley would want."

Aziraphale frowned. "Surely he didn't _make_ you do it. He knows the risks... The dangers."

"Not... specifically..." She looked down at her feet. "But he said to help you anyway I can."

"What if you fall?" Aziraphale asked softly.

"I'll return to Earth with y... with the birds." She looked on the verge of tears but also slightly defiant.

"Anpiel..."

Anpiel shook her head and then opened the door and almost flung herself out, bolting down the corridor towards the receding sounds of shouts and running.

For a very long while, Aziraphale just stood staring at the door.


	22. The Miracle

_Some time ago on Earth..._

“So…” Crowley said, looking up from the shelf he’d been dusting carefully. 

Anpiel had finished the original book she had borrowed days ago and, without asking, moved on to other books, all somehow concerned with birds. Species of birds. Bird habitats. The keeping of birds. Crowley had tried looking in a few of them but had found them astoundingly tedious.

She had not spoken since Thursday.

In other words, she was being boring. And rude. 

He should get rid of her. He really should. Send her back to Heaven with her feathers ruffled. Or at least kick her out of Aziraphale’s shop.

He should have done that on the first day. But he hadn’t.

He should have done it when she went for the second book. But he hadn’t.

He had missed all the obvious moments and now… Now it would just be awkward.

And to be honest, which he really almost never was, he didn’t mind her company all that much. 

She was a bit like one of his plants. A large, dull, annoying one. Except she didn’t have to be watered. Or yelled at.

Though he had been tempted a few times.

“So?”

Crowley blinked. What? Oh… He had spoken first.

“So, when will you be going back upstairs? How long is your… shift?”

Anpiel marked her page in the book she was reading—something about ducks, of course—and put it down. “What day is today?”

Crowley rolled his eyes, realised she couldn’t see it, took off his glasses and did it again. “It’s Saturday.”

“Oh…” Did her shoulders actually sag a little? “I think I have a couple of days left. Maybe a week.” She ran a finger slowly along the spine of the book in front of her. “Do you… Do you have a message you want me to deliver? To him?”

Crowley quickly put his glasses back on and straightened up. “You would?! I mean… What would you want in return?”

The angel shrugged. “Not necessarily anything. The first message was for one book, and you’ve been letting me read several, so it’s the least I can do. And I will return here next time, so he might want to send you a reply.”

“I see…” Crowley sat down to think and Anpiel picked up her book again. 

…

Crowley prowled the damp streets of London, the lyrics of Queen’s _Greatest Hits_ on a loop in his head. There were so many things he wanted to say to his angel. How could one single message possibly convey it all? And even though it was Aziraphale who had chosen the medium of their communications, was he really _that_ familiar with the songs? Crowley couldn’t just choose any stanza. If it was too obscure, Aziraphale might not be able to work it out. Or even understand him.

He wondered about Heaven’s security system, which he supposed was a lot more sophisticated than the peepholes and ear trumpets down below. Could it even be digital? And if it was, could it be hacked? The possibility of being able to watch and maybe even listen to his angel as he received and decoded Crowley’s message made him feel so giddy that he inadvertently cleared up the skin of a young man, unbent a sign outside a bakery and mended the holes in several umbrellas without even realising that he was effusing miraculous energy.

But no… Even if Heaven had gone digital, they would not be connected to the internet. Which meant he would have to get some kind of transmitter up there and hooked up to the system. If they even had one. And the odds of getting the Virtue to do that for him were depressing.

Three cabs simultaneously blew a tire, causing a very inconvenient holdup on Charing Cross Road.

No, there was no way he could keep a tab on things. He would just have to pick the perfect line… Something Aziraphale would know…

Maybe the safest would be to stick to the song Aziraphale himself had used. Crowley began humming. _A baby I was when you took my hand_ … Their first meeting in the garden… Aziraphale hadn’t taken his hand, but… He had literally taken him under his wing. Crowley sniffed. _And the light of the night burned bright_ … That night during the Blitz… _The people all stared didn’t understand_ … Well, that definitely fit. Nobody understood what they had… _But you knew my name on sight_ … The light in Aziraphale’s eyes whenever their paths had crossed.

It really was a suitable song for them, but Aziraphale had already used the best line from it. What was Crowley supposed to tell him? _You won’t see me_ … Of course he wouldn’t. Aziraphale was in Heaven and Crowley was stuck here. And even if he could get up there, it wasn’t like he could just walk around looking for his angel. He would be recognised.

Oh…

…

All the way back to the shop, he’d been racking his brain for the right offer to make. The one temptation she would not be able to resist.

It wasn’t like he was asking for a permanent trade. Just to take her place for a little while. Until they sent her back to Earth again. A few days or weeks. Long enough to see his angel and confirm that he had not been hurt. Deliver his message himself and make sure that Aziraphale understood what he wanted to tell him. _Everything_ he wanted to tell him.

But what did he have that the Virtue might want? He’d already let her read Aziraphale’s books at her leisure. Surely she would not be willing to take such a risk for the privilege of a few more days in the bookshop. And she did not seem interested in wealth, beauty or pleasure. How did one go about tempting an angel? Well… any other angel?

He would just have to wing it.

He flung the door open and then paused as he realised that she was no longer bent over her book. She was pacing. Pacing and doing the angelic equivalent of cursing.

“How dare they! Those… mean… people!” She huffed. “What do they think I am? A common… fool?” She noticed Crowley and glared at him. “What do you want?”

He closed the door softly before approaching her. “Is something wrong… Anpiel?”

She rolled her eyes and flung out her arms in irritation. “Heaven!” she groaned. “They say my time is up. That I have to return now. But I haven’t accomplished anything here. I’m not even halfway with my research and I have yet to go out there and actually see them!” She gestured at the door.

“Them?” Crowley frowned. “The humans?”

“No!” She stamped her foot in irritation. “The birds! _My_ birds!”

Crowley gaped at her.

Then he took a deep breath, straightened up and rolled his neck once before plastering on his most professional smile.

“Well… We can’t have that, can we? Why don’t you let me offer you a… suggestion?”


	23. Now I'm Here

After finishing Anpiel’s reorganisation of the shoeboxes to properly hide the body, Aziraphale sat down on his table and didn’t touch any shoes for a long time.

The way Anpiel had looked was haunting him.

He supposed it was improper to give such consideration to the gaze of a being who was not his boyfriend. It had been so easy to imagine she loved Crowley. Beautiful Crowley with his mesmerising eyes, his soft expressions and his witty comebacks. Aziraphale missed him so much it hurt.

But he’d been wrong. Anpiel wasn’t in love with Crowley.

She loved _him_.

The visits in the void, the picnic, and now this final act of defiance against everything she believed in: stealing from Heaven itself. It could have been showings of her friendship, but not after she’d looked at him like that. Not when she ran away.

And Aziraphale had no idea what to do with it.

He’d led her astray. He’d tempted her straight off the righteous path, making her break all the rules. Of course it hadn’t been his intention, but didn’t that make it worse, in a way? That he accomplished what demons from Hell were all dreaming about, without giving it any thought?

And his own guilt notwithstanding, what should he tell her? He and Crowley were courting, but how could he admit that to her? What if her jealousy would mean Crowley’s undoing?

But on the other hand, what if she fell deeper and deeper for him—possibly in more than one, terrible way—and he ended up hurting her? After everything she’d done for him, didn’t she deserve to know the truth?

He rested his elbows on his thighs and let his head sink into his hands. 

It would be so much easier if he could talk to Crowley about this mess. If Anpiel could see him and Crowley together. If they could invite her to the bookshop, so they could all talk and have cocoa and maybe discuss some of the birds she liked.

So the solution really was the same as ever: he needed to get home as fast as possible. And as long as they were in Heaven, both he and Anpiel would have to avoid the subject of their feelings.

…

Though many hours must have passed, Aziraphale was still uselessly sitting on his desk, much more slumped than he ever would in better circumstances, when a soft knock came to the door. Had he been moving, he would have frozen mid-movement, and had he had a heart, it would have been ready to beat out of his chest. They’d been found out. The angels knew the body was missing. The Quartermaster was here to reclaim it, and then… Then they would be punished, and Anpiel would suffer for her helpfulness. But maybe the angels didn’t know she’d been involved. Maybe Aziraphale could still protect her.

Either way, he’d better open the door and stall them. Perhaps Anpiel would realise she should get out of Heaven before they discovered the corporation behind the shoeboxes, and maybe— 

It was Anpiel.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, feeling very silly and very relieved at the same time as he stepped aside to let her into the closet. “Hello.”

Anpiel looked around and sighed. "It's still hidden? Good."

"Yes, of course." Aziraphale quietly watched her for a moment, at a loss for what to say. "You don't usually knock," he remarked eventually. "For a moment I was afraid that it would be..." He tilted his head. "... _them_."

"Sorry." She didn't meet his eyes. "I didn't want to startle you. I just came to tell you that... the Heavenly surveillance system is up and running again. It had a glitch during the... event. A lot of cameras malfunctioned. Including the ones in Storage and... here. But everything is working again, so that's... good." She glanced up towards the naked light bulb hanging from its wire above them.

"Oh." Aziraphale glanced at the lamp too, and then at the shoe boxes. "You mean... They're watching _here_? All the time?"

"There's always a camera." She lowered her voice. "I don't know if someone is always watching."

Aziraphale nodded slowly. "Thanks for the warn— I mean, for letting me know everything is functioning as it should. Such a great relief." The corners of his mouth twitched tensely.

"It is." She nodded. "So... How are you doing?"

"Er... I think I feel rather confused," Aziraphale replied honestly, though he could hardly reveal what he'd been thinking about for the past hours. "That is to say... What was going on earlier? Why were they all running like there was a rebellion happening?"

Anpiel was practically squirming and seemed to be doing some quick thinking. "Let's... Let's take a walk."

"Yes. Let's." Aziraphale held the door open for her and quickly followed her into the corridors once again.

Anpiel led him down several corridors past completely identical office spaces until they came to a cluster of uncommonly messy, unoccupied desks, placed apart from the others.

"There's a hearing going on," she explained, gesturing for him to sit as she slumped down in one of the empty chairs. "The whole Earth detail has been deemed responsible for the debacle. They should be cleared eventually, but for now it gives us some privacy. There are no cameras devoted specifically to this area."

"Right," Aziraphale said. "What did they do?"

"As far as I know, nothing. Which was part of the problem."

Aziraphale gave her a questioning look.

She sighed. "There was some sort of event on Earth and a lot of souls suddenly wanted to go down there. They couldn't be processed fast enough and... there was a bit of a riot. I heard."

“Strange,” Aziraphale said, frowning a little. “I suppose we were lucky something like this occurred so we could perform our little caper.”

"Yeah..." Anpiel grimaced. "Lucky."

"But I can't count on something like that happening again," Aziraphale said. "Having the body is a good start, but it's not enough to get me home."

"Patience, angel." Anpiel reached for his hand. “We need to plan the next bit carefully. Getting you _and_ your body out of here won’t be easy. I have some ideas, but they need more work.”

Aziraphale felt a stab of guilt as he let her take his hand. They really needed to get this sorted. He _had_ to get back to Crowley. "Look, Anpiel…” he said softly, leaning in a little. “This is going too slow for me."

Anpiel all but exploded as she screeched: "Too _slow_ for you!?!? Are you kidding me?"

“Sssh! Not so loud!” Aziraphale said, startled. It was almost as if Anpiel’s eyes flashed yellow. He couldn’t stop staring at her, and she wasn’t blinking either. He was dreaming. This couldn't be…

"Don't you sssssshhhhhussssshhhh me!"

“What… What’s happening?” Aziraphale squeaked. “C… Crowley?”

Anpiel stared at him, her mouth hanging open for a moment. "I... I..." Her eyes flicked from side to side and then she quickly pulled him down behind one of the desks. "Ssssshhhhut up!!!!"

“But you’re… you’re _here_!” Though he’d moved position, Aziraphale had a feeling his face would be frozen into a stunned expression for the rest of his days. “How can you be _here_?” He lifted his hand to touch Anpiel’s face, but thought better of it at the last moment.

She didn't hesitate, but leaned into the touch and closed her eyes. "You ask such silly questions, angel."

"Crowley," Aziraphale whispered, his eyes filling with tears as he ghosted his fingertips over her jaw. "All this time... I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again... and you were right here?"

"Most..." She had to stop and bite her lip before smiling. "Most of the time. You... You sent me just what I needed."

"My messages?" Aziraphale asked.

Crowley snorted. "No. The messenger." She gestured vaguely at herself. "How do I look?"

"Hold on." Aziraphale frowned. "What happened to the real Anpiel?"

"She's happily tending your shop and overfeeding the avian wildlife of London." Crowley giggled. "And looking very stylish while doing it. If I may say so myself."

Aziraphale smiled a little. "Good."


	24. The Invisible Man

It was just so like her angel, Crowley thought fondly. To worry about some random acquaintance in the middle of this mess. Crowley wanted to kiss him. 

So she did.

Aziraphale squeaked and pushed her back. “Crowley…!”

She looked around quickly. “What? Is anyone coming?”

“No, but… But…” Aziraphale gestured vaguely between them. “It’s all wrong!”

Crowley frowned, then looked down at herself. Her heart dropped. “Oh… Wrong body.”

Aziraphale squirmed. “I do want to kiss you, Crowley. Very much. And… a lot. I’ve been…” He blushed a little. “I’ve been looking forward to it. But it feels like it should be quite a moment. The first time. And I’ve been picturing it with a different face. _Your_ face. And… your eyes. And I don’t even have a body myself! Or well, I do, but… I’m not _wearing_ it!”

Crowley sighed. “You’re right, of course. I just… I’ve been looking at you all this time, wanting to touch you… And I just… I couldn’t…”

It had been a torture worse than anything her fellow demons could ever have devised. Yes, she’d been with Aziraphale, watching over him and making sure her messages were not misunderstood. But he had not known her. Not recognised her. Looking into her angel’s eyes and knowing he saw a stranger had all but broken her.

And then as he got more comfortable with ‘Anpiel’... Friendly... That might have been even worse. Sure, Crowley had enjoyed his company. The picnic. The long talks. But she had also been plagued by an irrational sense of jealousy. How could her angel be like this with someone else? It wasn’t _really_ someone else, but still. _He_ didn’t know that!

And then the dread when she thought she had been found out. When she had been a bit too glib towards Gabriel. When Aziraphale had asked her how Crowley was doing down on Earth. When she had let an ‘angel’ slip or not been able to suppress a fond look.

But she had been lucky. In spite of all the obvious evidence, her angel had come through for her. Sweet and naive as he was, he had never even suspected that what he saw and heard was the truth. That things might not be as they seemed.

Crowley beamed at him. “I really love you!”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened in shock. “Crowley… You… I mean… I love you too. Obviously. But… Are you really sure it’s you in there? Just… going around talking about feelings? Admitting you _have_ feelings like that?”

Crowley huffed and nearly jumped to her feet before remembering they were hiding. “Of coursssse it’s me! I’m sorry if I’m not composed enough for you! I missssed you. I…” 

Aziraphale shuffled closer, still crouched behind the desk, and put his arms around her, pulling her into a long-awaited hug. “I missed you too, my dearest. More than I can say. I suppose I simply don’t understand… You could have told me it was you as soon as you got here. Given me some kind of sign. We wouldn’t have had to suffer.”

“I couldn’t… I…” Crowley sighed and closed her eyes. No need to tell her angel that he couldn’t keep a secret to save the world.

…

They sat there for a long time, just holding onto each other, until Aziraphale suddenly startled and let go of Crowley. “We should… We should probably head back. What if someone finds out about us?”

“Well, they’re bound to.” Crowley frowned. “It won’t be long before someone notices your body is missing. The Quartermaster is busy with the aftermath of the riot now, but eventually he’ll realise that the cameras were down and go check. I mean, he’s an idiot, but not _that_ stupid…”

Aziraphale bit his lip. “So we should act like we’re not… Like we don’t particularly _like_ each other?”

“Well, they already know we’re friends, right?” Crowley forced herself to smile. “It would seem suspicious if we suddenly behaved differently. But we can’t linger here in Heaven. Not for long. We just… We need a plan…”

Aziraphale nodded, a little dejected, but then a light came into his eyes. “What if we _do_ act differently? What if we just tell them it’s you, and _scare_ them into letting us out?”

“Oh, angel.” Crowley laughed. “They’re not scared of me. Not _that_ scared, anyway. My presence did not stop them from coming for you back on Earth, did it? Nor prevent them taking you away. No… We need something else. Another distraction. But a bigger one. You must get back inside your body and then somehow make it to an exit. The Earth is too well-guarded and the main entrance is a long shot too…” She bit her lip. Thinking. There was the _other_ way, but she really didn’t want to go there unless they absolutely had to.

“What if you tempted the Earth’s guards away from the globe?” Aziraphale suggested. 

“With what?” Crowley snorted. “Crêpes? I’m afraid that only ever worked on you.”

Aziraphale sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a good crêpe right now…”

…

They were back in the closet.

Crowley supposed she ought to get out of there and back to work to avoid earning them further attention, but she just couldn’t make herself leave the angel. Not now, when he finally knew the truth.

Besides, they could not waste time on tedious Heavenly tasks. They had to plan. They had to get out.

She’d already pulled off two rather—if she said so herself—masterly plans. It was almost a shame she had wasted the first one on something as frivolous as a picnic. But it had been worth it at the time. To spend time with Aziraphale and to give him a break from his task. To give him hope.

But now they needed a true stroke of brilliance. Something so large-scaled that it would give Aziraphale time to get back into his body and out of Heaven. 

Crowley groaned and rubbed her temples. Could she somehow get the demons to invade? Surely that would distract the angels. But hadn’t they already risked everything to _stop_ a war between Heaven and Hell? No… They couldn’t chance starting another one.

But then what?

"I honestly don't understand how I didn't see it before," Aziraphale said, distracting Crowley from her thoughts. "The way you're frowning, it's just so... _you_."

Crowley rolled her eyes. "Are you even thinking about ways to get out of here?"

Aziraphale blinked. "Oh. Right." His focus lingered on Crowley's face for a moment longer before he glanced at the body behind him. "I suppose I could talk to Dumah. I can't really remember how to move into a new body the proper way, since I've only done it once..."

"Good point." Crowley hadn't thought about that. She had just sort of assumed that Aziraphale would _know_. It was, after all, his body. She frowned. "Do you think they'll help us? Won't they wonder why you're asking?"

"It's not a secret that I want to inhabit a body again _someday_ ," Aziraphale pointed out. "I think I can be subtle."

"Of course you can." Crowley hid the cold sense of dread that was creeping up on her with a fond smile. "It's a good idea."


	25. Headlong

“Well, that went down like a lead balloon!” Crowley quoted herself, darting around a corner, pulling Aziraphale along seconds before a herd of enraged angels trampled by. “But at least we found out… enough.” She bent over, resting her hands on her knees for a second, composing herself. “Right?”

“I hope so,” Aziraphale panted, glancing around nervously. “I wish we’d remembered Dumah’s old feud with Anpiel… Maybe they wouldn’t have been so distrustful if you hadn’t been there.”

“Yup. It was _my_ being there that tipped them off. Sure…” Crowley barely avoided rolling her eyes. She missed her glasses.

Dumah had been on their way back to Earth and reluctant to answer Aziraphale's questions. Crowley supposed they had only complied in the hopes that it would get him off their back. Hesitation had turned to dubiety and then direct suspicion as Aziraphale had stumbled through an involuted justification for his curiosity and, before Crowley could intervene, Dumah had sounded the alarm.

"We're out of time," she hissed. "And options... Go... Go get your body. Meet me by our latest rendezvous."

“Where we had the picnic?”

“Yes…” Crowley clenched her fists and counted silently to ten.

“Right. Of course. Silly me.” Aziraphale gave him a nod, clearly gathering his courage. "Be careful!"

"You too." She sighed and blew him a kiss.

…

Crowley couldn’t have planned it better herself. Though… In a way she _had_ planned it, hadn’t she? After all, it was she who had let the pigeons into Heaven in the first place. And the last stragglers had been able to keep out of sight by hanging out in Storage, where she had let them in when she came across them after the picnic, hoping they might make a delightful mess in there. She didn’t know if it had worked, but liked to think that if Gabriel ever needed his spare body, he’d find it with some… additions.

But the birds had gotten out when Aziraphale retrieved _his_ body, and now they’d chosen the perfect moment to find a new outlet for the inevitable Heavenly boredom. As Crowley was making her way towards the rendezvous, she was accosted by a flustered group of angels, two of them in full uniform, who had apparently not heard about Aziraphale’s clever ploy yet as they were too busy trying to rescue the Very Important Scrolls that the pigeons were busy shredding to line the ceiling vent they had designated their new nest. The angels implored ‘Anpiel’ to go find them a ladder and then charged the unperturbed pigeons with brooms and rulers far too short to actually reach them.

Crowley had agreed readily and set off in the direction of the stairs, her heart swelling with hope. 

Yes! The uniformed angels were indeed the guards that were supposed to be watching the stairwell!

Sure, there were still cameras, but once she and Aziraphale were out of Heaven, it didn’t matter one bit if Gabriel and his minions knew how and where they had gone. 

Crowley grinned and flipped off the camera.

“Crowley!”

She turned to see Aziraphale hurrying towards her. Not only was he now wearing his body, but he had somehow gotten hold of some old-fashioned Heavenly robes. She gaped at him. He looked just like the first time they met. "You did it!" she exclaimed. "You're yourself again."

"Tadaa!" Aziraphale spread his arms out happily.

"You look wonderful!" Crowley beamed at him. “Where did you get the robes?”

“They’d been used to wrap a pair of sandals that didn’t have a box,” Aziraphale replied. “I’m glad I remembered where I’d put them when I realised I couldn’t simply miracle up clothes…”

"That... That was brilliant, angel..." It took Crowley a moment to remember that they were supposed to be running away. She opened the door. "Come. This way!"

Aziraphale frowned. "What are we... Are we going... _there_?"

"We're getting out of _here_." Crowley offered him her hand. "While we can. We'll figure the rest out as we go."

For a moment Aziraphale looked as if he was going to argue, but then he nodded. "Lead the way."


	26. My Life Has Been Saved

Mere hours ago, Aziraphale had still thought that he might never be able to leave Heaven. Now here he was, hurrying down the stairs with Crowley by his side. His partner, his demon, his adversary of six millennia, whom he had managed _not_ to recognise all this time. Had there been any space left for yet another emotion inside Aziraphale’s newly acquired body, he’d have felt ashamed. But currently he was too busy feeling elated and anxious at the same time, and trying to figure out which of those was causing the flutters in his new stomach.

Maybe it was just Crowley’s presence.

“Was it hard?” she asked, pausing as they reached a landing.

“What?!” Aziraphale squawked.

“The body.” She gestured at him. “Getting back inside it?”

“Oh! I… I don’t want to think about it, really. It was… unpleasant.”

“Sorry.” She grasped his hand and squeezed it. “Do you need a moment or should we go on?”

“Let’s move on,” Aziraphale said resolutely. “Do _you_ remember anything about the moment you first got your body?”

“I was a snake…”

“Oh, of course. But do you remember?”

“Of course.” She grinned. “It was very odd. But also kind of… comfortable.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale frowned. “Must be quite different, then. It was also different from just…” He gestured between them. “Swapping.”

“Yeah.” Her smile faltered a little. “I can imagine.”

“I really hope you can’t,” Aziraphale muttered darkly.

…

They’d been descending for barely ten minutes when the stairs gave out on a dark corridor where only two lamps were still working, one of which was flickering. At the end of the corridor was a black door.

“Have we arrived?” Aziraphale asked. “Already?”

“I think so,” Crowley answered, her voice barely more than a whisper as she moved slowly towards the door. “I haven’t gone this way in… in a long time.”

“I thought it would take longer.” Aziraphale found himself reluctant to approach the door.

“Yeah, it feels a little… Anticlimactic.” Crowley paused before pressing her ear against the door. “There shouldn’t be any guards on this end, though. Demons are too lazy to climb stairs unless directly ordered to.” She smiled crookedly. “Guess who invented escalators? And lifts?”

Aziraphale frowned. “I thought those were ours. They do make places more accessible, after all. I’ve definitely been grateful for their existence…”

“You’re welcome.” Crowley giggled and then turned the knob slowly, pushing the door open just enough to peer around it. “All clear. I think.”

Aziraphale took a deep breath. “Well, in we pop.”

The stench of sulphur, sweat and musty basement met them as soon as they stepped through the door. 

“They still haven’t fixed the lights,” Aziraphale whispered to Crowley, mainly to drown out the sounds of leaking water and the tinkling of the fluorescent tubes.

“They’re made this way,” Crowley replied, then shushed him. “Did you hear that?”

“Someone’s there!” Panic gripped Aziraphale’s chest, making him gasp for unnecessary breath as the footsteps approached. They were accompanied by a strange groaning sound, as if the demon was attempting to hum a tune but had never actually learned how.

"In here!" Crowley pulled Aziraphale through a broken door into... a closet.

“Oh, honestly,” Aziraphale tutted, pursing his lips as he looked around at the cobwebbed corners. At least his Heavenly closet had been clean.

They were silent for a while, listening as the footsteps passed. 

“What do you think they’ll do if they find us?” Aziraphale whispered.

"I don't know." Crowley put her ear to the door, listening. "Lock us up, maybe. Torture us. Send you back." She shivered. "Come. I think they're gone."

Aziraphale took her hand. “I don’t suppose a small demonic miracle would get us out of here?”

"Right..." Crowley's face scrunched up in concentration for a few seconds and then her hair rippled out and up, settling into vaguely feathery shapes. A moment later, something small and soft settled on top of Aziraphale's head.

Aziraphale felt it gingerly and quickly withdrew his hand when it moved. "What is that?"

"It's a meadow vole." Crowley squirmed a little. "Or it looks like one, at least. I didn't want to give you a bug or a lizard. I thought this suited you better. Is it okay?"

"Oh..." Aziraphale smiled and gently raised his hand again to touch the small rodent. "Yes, of course. Hello..."

"It's just an illusion." Crowley closed her eyes again and their clothes changed from Heavenly pristine to Infernally grubby. "We better go. The longer we stay here, the greater the risk of getting caught."

"Of course." Aziraphale gave the illusionary animal a final soft pat for good measure. "I suppose we better... think demonic thoughts."

"I don't know if that will help, but..." Crowley leaned out of the door to check if the way was clear and signalled for him to follow. "I guess it can't hurt."

...

One unclean corridor followed another, and Aziraphale felt utterly lost. The hellish darkness made it difficult to see further than a few footsteps ahead, enforcing the feeling that they were walking in an endless labyrinth. Only the different posters they were passing reassured Aziraphale that they were actually making progress. He wondered if anyone really needed to be warned not to lick the disgusting walls, and whether advising employees to rip out their own throats with a stapler had ever boosted anyone’s efficiency. Going by the amount of files that seemed to have been dropped randomly pretty much everywhere he looked, he rather doubted it.

“Has it been like this since the beginning?” he whispered to Crowley. “When you first came down here?”

"Oh no," she answered. "It took aeons to get it like this. At first it was just sort of like... you know... a basement."

“Ah,” Aziraphale said. “So it wasn’t like the lights.”

“What do you mean?” Crowley frowned.

“You said the lights were meant to be broken. But some things were comfortable at first and then…” Aziraphale gestured around. “It turned into this? Into _Hell_?” It was an odd thought. Surely not every demon was chaotic and disgusting; Crowley's own too-tidy flat was proof of that. So what had _happened_?

“Oh…” She smiled. “You can _make_ something seem broken. But if you want true decay and dilapidation, it takes time and effort. Nothing but devout neglect can create this level of decrepitude.”

“I see.” Aziraphale frowned. “Were you happy here? At first?”

"Well… I didn't stick around," Crowley admitted. "First chance of a job up there and I was gone."

"Of course." Aziraphale smiled. "I'm glad you took the job, my dear."

"Oi! You two!"

Crowley whirled around to face the approaching demons, shoving Aziraphale behind her. "Through the next door," she hissed. "Take two rights and you should see the exit. Run!"

Aziraphale’s feet were obeying before his mind had truly processed what was happening. They were almost there. Almost free. Crowley would only need a minute to convince the other demons that everything was tickety-boo, and then that was that. They’d return to Earth, pick up their lives again, and hope Heaven wouldn’t come up with another creative way to take revenge.

Aziraphale stopped in front of the exit, looked over his shoulder and frowned. Crowley wasn’t there yet. It felt wrong to walk out the door without her, but Crowley _had_ told him to run. He had to trust her.

As the escalator slowly lifted him from the dark pit, he turned around to be able to see Crowley as soon as she’d appear. She would probably dash right past him and scold him for just standing here, but it would be so much nicer to flee together. Besides, no one seemed to be following him. The disguise had worked well, Aziraphale thought fondly, but he wouldn’t need it out there. He waved his hand, intending to make the illusion disappear, and then remembered he still didn’t have his powers. That would take some getting used to once he was home. He plucked the meadow vole from his head and put it in the pocket of his filthy robes.

When he reached the foyer of the office building, he began to grow worried. There was still no sign of Crowley. She might not look like herself, but she hadn’t exactly been inconspicuous while shouting at Aziraphale to run. What if the demons thought they’d caught an angel? Would they send her back to Heaven, or would they have a worse fate in store for her?

Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. He should go back and get her out of there. But the mere thought made him imagine Crowley’s rage if he did something so stupid after all the trouble she’d just gone through to help him escape. Still, just standing here dawdling felt awfully wrong. But was he really supposed to just leave her? He needed a plan…

And there was no time to come up with one, as something white moved in the corner of his eye. An angel in a white suit was descending the escalators on the other side. Dumah!

Aziraphale rushed out the door, cursed the fact that he couldn’t miracle himself home, and hailed the first cab he saw.


	27. Body Language

The first cab drove past Aziraphale.

So did the second. The driver had very obviously seen him, as he sent him a derisive glare, but sped up instead of coming to a halt. 

“How rude,” Aziraphale muttered to himself, walking in the direction of the bookshop for another few minutes before the next cab passed by. This one was occupied.

The new corporation was starting to feel cold under the tatty robes. Going by the position of the sun, it had to be late afternoon or early evening, and the small green leaves and buds on the trees told Aziraphale it was spring. The time of new beginnings. The thought left a heavy weight in his stomach. Returning to Earth should have been a reason for celebration, but how was he supposed to celebrate without Crowley? Without even knowing what was happening to her?

There was another occupied cab, but the fifth finally stopped, after Aziraphale had given a very exaggerated wave.

“Can you actually pay?” the driver asked, looking him up and down.

“I’ve got money at home,” Aziraphale promised, hoping he’d be able to find some in the till from the last time he’d been forced to actually sell a book. “Listen… Please. I own a bookshop in Soho. A.Z. Fell and Co. Perhaps you know it?”

The cabbie’s face remained unmoved.

“I need to get there quickly. My… My friend is in need. I _must_ get home in order to help her. At least… I think that’ll be the right thing to do. Will you please help me?”

“If you own a shop, why are you dressed like you’re homeless?” The cabbie raised an eyebrow, with an air as if he’d just detected a great lie.

Aziraphale decided that the only solution was to answer with an actual untruth. “We… we had a fancy dress party at the office.”

“You call that fancy?” The cabbie scoffed. “All right, get in. I hope I won’t regret this.”

Traffic was moving at a tortuous pace. The silent drive took so long that Aziraphale was starting to wonder whether it wouldn’t have been faster if he’d walked the whole way.

He kept looking out the windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of Crowley rushing by. But that never happened, and Aziraphale was wringing his brand-new hands by the time the cab finally reached the bookshop. 

He gasped as he saw it.

In a chair with its back to the window sat a tall, thin figure with short red hair.

Aziraphale couldn’t be sure that his wings didn’t materialise for a moment, and honestly he didn’t care, as he _flew_ right out of the car and into the shop.

“Crowley!” he called out as he ran over to face her. “Oh, you scoundrel! You had me thinking something had happened! I’m so glad to see you safe…”

He dove into the demon’s arms, mildly surprised to find a book in his lap, but not paying it any attention as he pressed his lips to Crowley’s.

Something was terribly wrong.

He’d lived this moment so many times in his imagination, even at times when he would never have admitted to himself that he _was_ imagining it. But he’d never, _ever_ imagined that Crowley would start hitting him with a book.

One of his very own, centuries-old, beautifully illustrated books.

“Get off, you buffoon!” Crowley shrieked.

“But…” Aziraphale retreated, and his mistake began to dawn on him. “Oh no…”

“Oh, indeed, no!” He… she, Aziraphale corrected himself, glared at him. “What have you done with my body? Where is it? I said he could borrow it for a couple of days and it’s been ages! Why did I ever trust a demon?”

“Anpiel.” Aziraphale quickly put even more space between them. “He… I…” He pressed a hand against his mouth as realisation hit him. “I think I lost her…”

"Lost who?" Anpiel's frown was more than a little disturbing on Crowley's face.

“Crowley! She saved me, but… I just left her…”

"You lost my body!" Anpiel bristled. "Where?"

Aziraphale swallowed and looked at the floor. “She’s in Hell…”

"Hell!!!!" Several panes of glass shattered.

“Hey!” the cabbie shouted through the broken window. “Are you gonna pay or what?”

…

After paying the cabbie generously for his lost time, Aziraphale somewhat managed to calm Anpiel down. At least enough to tell her about their escape from Heaven.

“I have no idea what they might be doing to Crowley even as we speak,” Aziraphale lamented. “I must save her. Will you help me?”

"Do I have a choice?" Anpiel sighed. "I'm in enough trouble as it is. Imagine what will happen if I return to Heaven in... this..." She gestured at Crowley's lanky frame.

Aziraphale frowned. "I don't think that would be ideal to anyone. Having everyone back in their own shape would be far less disturbing."

"Indeed." She pondered for a moment. "Maybe we should ask the witches?"

“The witches?” Aziraphale repeated, surprised that Anpiel would suggest an alliance with the occult.

"Yes. The demon sent me to talk to some witches. Something about creating a disturbance. Apparently they're good at... stuff."

“A disturbance might be useful to get into Hell,” Aziraphale mused. “Is that what happened in Heaven? When everyone was running around? Was that the witches’ doing?”

"I don't know, do I?" She huffed. "I just delivered his message. He sent it along with the pigeons. Why don't you ask the witches?"

Aziraphale considered. It would be a good idea if he actually knew how to contact them… But then he realised that Crowley might not know that many more witches than he did. "Did you send it to Miss Anathema Device?"

"Device?" Anpiel thought for a moment. "Yes, she was one of them."

"Wonderful," Aziraphale said. "I'll ring her up right away." 


	28. Life is Real

“You’ve moved _where_?” Aziraphale held the phone’s earpiece a little away to stare at it.

“Crawley,” Anathema replied. “It’s lovely. The planes can get noisy, but…”

“Can you tell me your exact address?” Aziraphale interrupted her.

When he put the phone down less than a minute later, he felt only mildly guilty that the call hadn’t exactly held up to his usual polite standards. There were more urgent matters at hand than hearing the advantages of… _that town_. Of all the places where the young couple could have gone to live, why on Earth had Anathema and Newt chosen one that was named after the serpent of Eden? Or had it not been a conscious decision on their side but rather some tasteless joke of Hers, forcing Aziraphale to travel _there_ in order to get Crowley back?

He sighed and dialled another number.

“Hello. Could you please help me plan a public transport route from Soho, London, to Maidenbower, Crawley?”

Twenty minutes and a list of very confusing instructions later, Aziraphale had once again reached the level of despair he’d felt back when he’d been locked into the Heavenly void.

“An hour and a half!” he whined. “It’s 33 miles!”

"Is that long? Would walking be easier?" Anpiel sounded puzzled.

“No!” Aziraphale started pacing in distress. “But who knows how much time will pass for Crowley down in Hell? They’re probably torturing her already. Or maybe they’ve sent her back to Heaven, and they won’t forgive her easily for helping me escape. Oh, if only I had my powers…”

"I have mine," Anpiel said hesitantly. "But the demon warned me that using Angelic powers while in his body might draw... attention..."

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “That’s a good point. But maybe… Maybe if they’re really small ones… like just making sure our bus doesn’t get stuck in traffic, things like that…” He gave her a pleading look.

"If you think it will be worth the risk." She shrugged. "You know this... traffic... better than I do."

Aziraphale nodded firmly. "I'll let you know if action becomes necessary. Are you ready to go?" He was already opening the door, without waiting for an answer.

She nodded, following him outside.

After walking for about a minute, she nudged his shoulder. "Is that car following us?"

Aziraphale froze in place. He’d been intensely focused on striding towards Oxford Circus tube station, not paying any kind of attention to their surroundings in his haste.

“Fuck,” he whispered. Of course this would happen. Whether it was Hell or Heaven who’d sent agents after him didn’t matter. What would happen now? If they caught him, Crowley might be stuck in Hell forever. Everything was lost.

Anpiel looked over her shoulder. "It stopped too," she mused. "I didn't know cars could drive without a human in them. Is that a new thing?"

Against his better judgement, Aziraphale turned around to look. A flame of hope sparked in his heart as he recognised the black automobile, but there was indeed no driver.

"Oh, you darling," he said, holding out his hand towards the Bentley, which was holding up quite a lot of traffic behind it. "Did you come to give us a lift?"

The car opened its doors in reply.

"Take the driver's seat," Aziraphale told Anpiel, as he rushed to settle in his own familiar place in the car.

Anpiel sat and stared at the dashboard. "I don't drive..."

"Don't worry. It knows what to do. Just fasten your seatbelt and hold on tight." Aziraphale braced himself and then nodded. "Go on, dear car. Get us to Crawley as fast as you can. But be careful!"

The car waited patiently for Anpiel to fasten her seatbelt, then pulled into traffic. It didn't move quite as haphazardly as with Crowley behind the wheel, but it certainly made better time than an ordinary car would have.

…

The Bentley stopped in front of a yellow house, only slightly more modern than Jasmine Cottage had been, with a rather overgrown little front garden. It was lovely.

Anpiel fumbled frantically to get the door open, got caught in the seatbelt and then finally managed to get out. She bent over, her hands on her knees, taking deep, shaky breaths.

Aziraphale gently patted the dashboard and then got out too. “It’ll pass,” he told Anpiel, hoping to sound reassuring. “Maybe you should stay out here in the fresh air for a while. I’m glad I never get carsick, but I’ve read that many humans do, and they usually seem to feel tickety-boo quite soon once they’re out of the car.”

Anpiel gave a terse nod without looking up to him.

“Just remember never to get in the car when Crowley is actually driving,” Aziraphale advised, before walking over to ring the doorbell.

Young Master Newt opened the door. “Hello,” he said awkwardly.

“Good evening.” Aziraphale barely made time for a smile. “May I speak to Miss Anathema, please?”

“Er…” Newt said, already moving aside to let him pass. “She’s not actually _Miss_ Anathema anymore.”

Aziraphale gasped and turned back to him. “Oh _no_. Did we miss your wedding?”

Newt shrugged uneasily with one shoulder. “Yeah… We would have invited you, but we kind of thought you were… dead.”

“Right. I understand. I actually haven’t had time yet to find out how long I’ve been gone.”

“We did invite Crowley,” Newt said a little defensively, “but he never even replied.” He pointed out the door. “Isn’t he coming in? Was it something I said?”

“Oh, no, not at all, dear boy. You see, that’s not Crowley. The real Crowley would have been happy to attend, I’m sure. But he was in Heaven.”

Newt frowned. “Like… Were you two on honeymoon or something?”

Aziraphale spluttered. “Why would you think that we…”

“Don’t be silly, darling,” Anathema said, walking through the door with a squirming toddler under one arm. “Demons can’t just visit Heaven.”

“Anathema!” Aziraphale beamed at her. “Who’s your young friend?”

“Oh, this little demon?” She flipped the boy over so he was facing Aziraphale. “This is Heresy Pulsifer-Device. Heresy, meet the angel.”

Heresy grinned at him. “You were on our tree!” he told Aziraphale. “And the black one.”

Aziraphale blinked at the child. “You put Crowley on your Christmas tree? And me?”

“We made you ourselves,” Newt said, and then winced at his own words.

Anathema handed the child to him and put her business face on. “So what’s the emergency?” she asked.

“Crowley is in Hell.” Every spark of delight at seeing the child and knowing he and Crowley had been in the young family’s thoughts was drained from Aziraphale’s mind by speaking those words.

“He _is_ a demon,” Newt pointed out. “I thought he had to… report and stuff.”

“Not anymore,” Aziraphale said. “And they might think she’s an angel. We need to…” His voice broke. “We need to save her. And if I’m understanding it correctly, you’ve helped create a disturbance in Heaven before?”

“Yes, in Heaven.” Anathema frowned and went over to pick a large, old book off the shelf. “But séances only work for the souls of the righteous. Summoning the damned takes a lot more work. If it can even be done.”

“Do you mean to say that all of Heaven was in such a state because of a mere séance?” Aziraphale asked.

“Not just one. We—that is Madame Tracy and I—got in touch with a large number of witches, psychics and mediums around the world, and coordinated a mass-invocation with the intention of creating a… rush hour, you might call it, through the Pearly Gates.”

“So if we did a mass-summoning…” Aziraphale began, but then there was a knock on the front door. “Oh, better let Anpiel in. She must be feeling better by now.”

The mood turned a little awkward as the angel entered, glaring at everybody with fierce yellow eyes.

"Better put on your sunglasses, dear," Aziraphale advised.

Anpiel got them out of her pocket and then dropped them on the floor as the air was pierced by a deafening wail.

“Black angel is wrong!!!!” Heresy screamed, pointing an accusing finger at her. “Fix it!”

“Oh, you’re quite correct, my dear,” Aziraphale said, kneeling in front of the child. “But don’t be upset. Fixing her is exactly what we are trying to do.”

“So you’re… not Crowley,” Newt said to Anpiel. “Er… Welcome to our house? I’m Newt.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, picking up the glasses. “You’re a human.”

Newt blinked. “Er…”

Aziraphale straightened up. “He’s a human _called_ Newt. And this is Heresy, and Anathema. Everyone, meet Anpiel. She’s an angel who’s temporarily occupying Crowley’s body. Now,” he continued quickly as Anpiel opened her mouth to comment, “what do you know about summoning demons?”

“Demons?” Anathema tensed. She bit her lip and then made a small gesture to Newt, who quickly got to his feet and carried the still sniffling Heresy from the room. She lowered her voice. “That can be very dangerous. You never know what might come through.”

“Would there be no way to make sure you reach a _specific_ demon?” Aziraphale wondered.

"I can try, but there's no guarantee that something else might not try to follow." She thought for a moment. "I'm going to need help."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're taking a little break until after the holidays!  
> Sorry. We hope Crowley is comfortable in Hell... 
> 
> Happy holidays!


	29. Save Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took us a little longer than planned, but we're back! We've finished the story, so there won't be any more long delays. :)  
> Enjoy!

Madame Tracy and Former Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell both looked younger and more radiant than Aziraphale remembered. 

"I must say," Madame Tracy declared as she removed her headscarf, "the trains have gotten a good deal more comfortable since my youth. Don't you agree, Sweetums?"

"Et's a good thing 'em screens ain't got nipples or I'd dare accuse 'em o' witchcraft," Shadwell grumbled. "And what twaddle, too! Tellin' us we've got a trip of fefty minits and then we get 'ere in ten!"

"That might have had something to do with you taking a healthy nap along the way," Madame Tracy teased, her eyes twinkling.

Shadwell harrumphed.

"Well, now that you're _finally_ here," Aziraphale said, gesturing them along into the Pulsifer-Device sitting room, "let us get a move on, as they say."

"It wasn't easy to find," Anathema said, opening a large, old book to one of several bookmarks, "but I think I finally got it."

"Oh my dear," Madame Tracy said, walking over to look over her shoulder. "You sure have been busy."

Shadwell looked around and frowned. “Where’s Witchfinder Private Pulsifer?”

"Newt's with Heresy," Anathema said, not taking her eyes off the page as she waved in the general direction of the stairs. "They must be on their fifth bedtime story. Or sixth..."

Shadwell snorted. "Ah bet his stories just aren't thrillin' enough. _I_ know a tale or two..." He marched off and huffed and puffed his way up the stairs.

"Oh no." Madame Tracy looked after him. "Do you think he'll scare the little darling?"

Anathema shook her head. "More likely he'll scare Newt."

"If we could concentrate, please," Aziraphale said, rubbing his hands. "What do we do first?"

"We need a location." Anathema turned a page. "Someplace dark and secluded."

"Do you have a basement, dear?" Madame Tracy asked.

Anathema shook her head. "But there's an old pub down the street closed for renovations. The windows are all boarded up, so maybe that will do."

“It will have to,” Aziraphale said. “What else do we need?”

“Some herbs… I have most of them in my garden. A cauldron, doesn’t have to be a big one, and a bunch of candles.” She reached for a notepad and a pen.

“Very well," Aziraphale said. "Would you just tell me which herbs? No need for a list, I have a keen mind. And then I can go pick them while you two continue your own preparations.”

Anathema’s list was so long that even Aziraphale’s angelic memory almost staggered under its metaphorical weight. Still, he made sure to remember. When Anathema insisted he take a torch with him into the night—a very colourful plastic owl with two bright lamps for eyes—he almost refused, but then he remembered he couldn’t just _make_ light. He resolved to make the bookshop glow in all colours of the rainbow for an entire week if he ever got his powers back, just out of spite—and he was sure the disco-like effect would amuse Crowley. 

As he went out into the garden with his owl-torch and a small basket in which to collect the herbs, he saw Anpiel standing near the fence, looking up at a tree.

“Feeling better?” he asked, wondering what she was doing.

"It's much nicer here than in your shop," she answered. "In the city, most birds sleep at night, but here..." She cocked her head and laughed. "Did you hear that?"

“An owl?” Aziraphale guessed.

She nodded and turned to him, then gasped. "What kind of bird is that?"

“What?” Aziraphale looked down at his hand. “Oh, this? I suppose Heresy has been listening to the owls in the garden too. He must have liked them.”

"So he created a new species of bird?"

Aziraphale frowned. “No… His parents bought him this torch. I suppose it requires a little imagination, but I'm fairly certain it's supposed to represent an owl.” He paused and blinked. Right. Imagination. He was talking to an angel… “Would you mind helping me look for some herbs, Anpiel?”

"What do they look like?"

Aziraphale hesitated, wondering how to explain the different sizes of leaves and twigs to her. “How about you take this owl here and make sure I have some light while I search?”

With an almost reverent expression, she accepted the torch, stroking it gently as she examined it. "Humans... create these? In the image of birds?"

“Yes. I'm sure Anathema and Newt would be happy to tell you where they got it,” Aziraphale answered absently, already bending over to make sure the small plant really was parsley. Who’d ever have thought that his experience as a gardener would come in handy for a demonic ritual?

"I would like to meet the crafter." Anpiel flipped the torch to examine its bottom.

“They might live quite far away,” Aziraphale said, suppressing a sigh. “May I have the light back, please?”

She looked puzzled for a moment before nodding and turning the beam back towards him. "Sorry."

"Thank you," Aziraphale said primly.

…

It must have been a bad season, Aziraphale thought. The thyme and sage were both still so small that he couldn’t have picked more than a few minuscule leaves. And no amount of praising, flirting, insulting or shouting seemed to change that.

“We can’t wait until they've grown!” he moaned to Anpiel. “I’m sorry, but I think we have no other choice. We’re going to need a miracle.”

Anpiel opened her mouth, but before she could reply, the door opened behind her. 

"What's going on out here? Are the hordes of Hell upon us?" Anathema looked more bemused than alarmed.

“No… I had a bit of a disagreement with a plant, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale replied. “But Anpiel is going to be so kind as to fix it.”

"Fix it?" 

"Yes." Anpiel held out the torch for Aziraphale to take. "Plants aren't really my speciality, but I suppose they're not that different from fledglings." 

"What? No. Stop!" Anathema glared at Aziraphale. "Were you making her perform miracles?"

“Of course!” Aziraphale said. “We can’t summon Crowley without thyme and sage, and look at the state of these two!” He gestured at the abominable plants.

Anathema looked down and frowned. "Oh... I guess I forgot to take the British climate into account. Again." She sighed. "I guess we'll have to do it the hard way." She turned to the open door and raised her voice. "Honey? You're going to have to run down to the shop before they close!"


	30. Let Me In Your Heart Again

Aziraphale, Anpiel, Anathema, Newt, and Madame Tracy all stood in the small kitchen of Frogshole Farm Pub, crowded together in front of the stove. In the cauldron on top of it, water was slowly coming to a boil.

In truth, the cauldron was actually a large cast iron soup pot, but close enough—hopefully. "So," Anathema began, “the book said 'you can’t go wrong with a good invocation', but I don’t know… The directions were kind of…theatrical. I think some of the drama might have been added for effect or, you know, just be how things were done at that time. So I’ve tried to figure out what is essential and what is just added frills.” She looked around with a nervous smile. “Here goes?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said firmly. “Let’s summon Crowley.”

Anathema took a deep breath and then raised the fire poker in her hand into the air above the cauldron. “Serpent of Eden. We conjure and abjure thee by means of this... weighty and terrible… poker…” 

She glanced towards Newt, who cleared his throat and fumbled with the small cardboard packet that had been open and ready just a moment ago but now seemed to have sealed itself shut.

“See how we scatter…” He finally got it open. “... Bart Mediterranean Seasoning in thy honour.”

Even though Aziraphale was quite preoccupied, the scent of the herbs and spices made his new mouth water. 

“Is all this really necessary?” Anpiel cut in. “I mean, it’s not like we’re summoning the Lord of Hell…”

“We want to get this right,” Aziraphale declared. “We can’t accidentally invite another demon. Least of all the Lord of Hell!” He looked around at the others expectantly. They were all watching him.

“Oh… Right. Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Crowley… My dear… I… I invoke and bind thee with the owl-shaped Lamp of Art and the black Umbrella of Protection.”

Madame Tracy sighed. “I know we’re being honest and all, but it just doesn’t sound as good as the book’s version.”

“Demons don’t care about the outward shape of things,” Anathema huffed. “It’s the symbolism that’s important.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. "Have you _met_ Crowley?"

They all gasped as steam began forming on the surface of the mirky, aromatic water in the pot. Soon it grew denser and rose into a narrow snake shape, which then faded outward to form a very familiar head.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered in awe. “You’re here…”

The shape slowly looked around at them while its ghostly, transparent body formed underneath it. The herbal aroma shifted into an all too welcome cologne.

As the eyes fixed on Aziraphale, the shape frowned. “An owl-lamp? Really?”

“It belongs to Heresy,” Aziraphale said defensively. “And it got you here, didn’t it?”

“You’re bloody right it’s heresy! You couldn’t have thought of something more fitting, like… I don’t know, a spoon?”

“How is that more fitting?” Aziraphale squawked. “You don’t even like eating all that much! You think spoons are meant to clink against glasses and make noise!”

“I was being sarcastic, angel.” Crowley wrinkled his nose as he focused on Anpiel. “Oi, you! What have you done to my hair? If you went to that place down on Sheraton Street, there will be hell to pay!”

Anathema cleared her throat. “Speaking of Hell…”

“Are you all right?” Aziraphale asked, searching Crowley’s image for traces of violence. “Did they…”

Crowley turned to Aziraphale again. “They still think I’m an angel, so they didn’t dare do anything but lock me up. They know the upstairs-folk will come down on them hard if they ruffle any angelic feathers. But eventually they’re going to find out that the body I’m wearing is not so popular in Heaven anymore, and then I’ll be in trouble.”

“Or someone will come down to ‘retrieve’ me,” Anpiel added. “Which might be even worse.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Can you move the body here? Can we summon it along with, well, you?”

“I’m afraid not, dear.” It was Madame Tracy’s turn to chime in. “This kind of summoning works only for the soul. Raising a body from… there... That’s some very dark magic.”

“Yeah,” Anathema added. “We’re not touching that.”

Aziraphale glanced at Anpiel. “But… Crowley is going to need their own body. And they can’t share with Anpiel…”

"Can't we just switch now?" Anpiel said, stepping forward. 

"That would send you to Hell, love," Madame Tracy said, her eyes wide.

"I can handle Hell," she sighed. "As long as I'm back in my own body."

Crowley-in-the-Cauldron matched her dejected expression.

"I'm sorry." Anathema put a hand on Anpiel's shoulder. "We can't do that from here. We need to touch the body to channel you into it." She frowned. "But there's no point in sending Crowley back to it either. Not much good he can do to anyone, locked up in Hell."

"Finally somebody is making sense!" Crowley huffed.

"Anpiel." Anathema made the angel in the demon body look her in the eyes. "If we keep Crowley here, your body will be empty. Alone. Is that... Will that be okay with you?"

Everyone seemed to hold their breath while Anpiel considered.

Finally, she nodded. "We're going to need a demon to come up with a plan to trick Hell."

Madame Tracy nodded and reached for the cauldron, but Anathema stopped her. 

"I'll handle this one," she said, then held out her hand to Crowley. "If you don't mind."

Crowley hesitated before reaching for her and vanishing.

Aziraphale watched Anathema closely and made an embarrassing noise when he saw the change in her expression. "You did it. You're back on Earth!"

"I... I am..." Crowley's bemused voice sounded out of Anathema's mouth, her eyes wide with shock as she added: "This is bizarre!" in her own voice.

“It is,” Newt said, staring at her in shock. “Is it really necessary that he’s… in my wife?”

"For now, honey." Anathema's sweet smile battled Crowley's sneer, making them look like they were holding back a powerful sneeze.

"I, uhm... I think we better close this thing." Madame Tracy sounded tense. "I sense something getting curious at the other end."

"Right." Aziraphale still hadn't taken his eyes off Anathema. "Was someone close to you when we called, Crowley?"

"I don't think so." Crowley shrugged. "They just locked me up and left me alone. I guess they're trying to work out what to do with a captured angel.”

"It's a relief they didn't get that far yet," Aziraphale said.

"Are we just going to stand around and wait for them to get an idea?" Anpiel snapped. "Or are we going to do something?"

"In a moment, dearie." Madame Tracy pushed past her, pulled the umbrella out of Aziraphale's hand and brandished it at the pot in a threatening manner. "Oh no, you don't!"

Anathema joined her, waving the poker in an intricate pattern over the pot.

"Begone, foul demon!" she intoned before the voice switched to Crowley's: "Oi, that's Pithius, that is! He's a nasty one."

A hand materialised out of the steam, reaching towards Anpiel. It crumpled into dust as Newt smacked it with his box of Seasoning. 

"Right!" Madame Tracy grabbed a salt shaker and tossed it into the steam, which instantly turned green, then blue, and finally dispersed. "Off you pop!"

Aziraphale stepped closer and tentatively held out his hand to Anathema. “My dear… I'm so glad you're here.”


	31. A Human Body

Switching bodies had not exactly been pleasurable, but sharing one with a human was... bizarre. It wasn't like Crowley could read Anathema's mind or anything like that, but he could sort of... feel her. Not in any physical sense, but as a constant presence. A soul, he supposed, occupying, for now, the same space as him.

He looked down at their shared body. Thankfully she did have a great sense of style. Much better than that silly little angel he'd been pretending to be for...

"Crowley?"

Crowley turned around and saw Aziraphale, darling Aziraphale, reaching for him.

"Angel." Crowley grasped the offered hand, pulling him closer. "We did it. You're back on Earth. You're safe."

Newt cleared his throat, but before he could speak, Anathema took over their mouth. 

"This is all really sweet and I understand how you two are feeling, but I think my husband might object to you getting too affectionate right now. And we really should wrap things up here and go back to the house before Heresy wakes up."

"Oh, I'm sure Shaddy can handle the wee one," Madame Tracy chirped, gathering up the implements they had used for the invocation and depositing them in the arms of a bemused-looking Crowley-clad Anpiel.

Still, they all agreed that it would be better to return to the Device-Pulsifer residence than stay in the boarded-up pub and soon they were on their way. 

Crowley couldn't help studying _his_ body as it walked in front of him. It was strange. Not just because he was watching himself, but because... well... It wasn't himself, was it? Surely he did not walk that stiffly. As if his feet would trip him up if he did not maintain a state of constant vigilance. 

Maybe they would... He remembered how odd it had felt those first weeks in Anpiel's body. The short legs and broad hips that just didn't want to sway. Crowley had hidden herself away in a corner of Heaven and just practised walking. But she'd gotten used to it. She'd watched the other angels, all of them quite unlike her Aziraphale, who was always so animated and alive. Maybe it was because of his prolonged stay on Earth, or maybe—the thought had made her smile—maybe it had something to do with Crowley's influence. It wasn't a normal angel-thing, certainly. All the others seemed to be in a constant stick-up-the-bum state and walked as if Heaven's laundromat had had a clearance sale on starch. 

He supposed Anpiel, rather than adapt to his demonic body, had forced it to yield to her own angelic habits. That poor thing. He couldn't wait to get it back and let it have a good long swagger.

"It's odd, isn't it?" Aziraphale said with a ponderous expression. "I can't believe I thought for a moment that... that she was you."

"Well, you thought _I_ was _her_ for a pretty long time," Crowley teased and then almost jumped with surprise as Anathema reached out to clasp Aziraphale's hand.

Aziraphale gave a gentle squeeze, but was still frowning. "I did. After all those millennia, I should have known it wasn't you… I mean—" he cleared his throat, blushing— "that it _was_ you." 

“Are you okay, angel? Do you need to lie down?” Crowley used Anathema’s free hand to reach up and feel Aziraphale’s forehead. Wouldn’t it just be perfect if they’d gone through all this just to be back where they started?

"I'm fine!" Aziraphale said quickly. "Just… a slip of the tongue. The emotion, you see." He sent Crowley his most radiant smile. "Everything is wonderful now that I have you here."

…

They spent the rest of the night and most of the following morning gathered around the small table in the Pulsifer-Device kitchen. Madame Tracy kept them all supplied with tea and Newt brought out two large tins of very sugary biscuits which may very well have fuelled some of the more outlandish suggestions for how they were going to get Anpiel’s body and Aziraphale’s powers back.

"If only I'd known to bring Witchfinder Colonel Dalrymple's Thundergun along," Shadwell lamented. "That'd convince the darned idjits reet away."

"Except that the last thing we want is to cause a war," Aziraphale pointed out, his angelic patience clearly being stretched to the extreme. "We need to be smarter. We need to… to…" He looked in Anathema's direction with a mix of hope and desperation in his eyes.

“We need to trick them,” Crowley offered. “Somehow…” If only he had his head to himself, maybe he would have been able to put two thoughts together, but sharing a body apparently also meant sharing a brain and he just couldn’t work up his usual spark.

“We could try reasoning with them,” Madame Tracy interjected. “In my opinion, a little patience and a lot of kindness go a long way to win someone over.” She gazed lovingly at Shadwell.

Anathema clamped their jaw shut before Crowley could comment.

"Or bribe them," Newt supplied, shaking the tin of biscuits demonstratively. "Offer them something they simply can't refuse."

"I suppose that would work on me," Aziraphale said wistfully, following the tin with his eyes, "but what could we possibly offer that the other angels and demons want? Aside from better work conditions... We can't exactly offer to rehaul the entirety of Heaven and Hell for them."

Everybody turned around as the door to the kitchen opened and a small child in striped pyjamas padded past them. He looked briefly up at Crowley, smiled sleepily and yawned. 

“Hi, Black Angel,” he said before continuing over to the refrigerator and pulling it open with some effort. “Ma, can I have trifle for breakfast?”

“You most certainly cannot,” Anathema answered, as Crowley felt her chest swell with emotion, possibly pride. “But your father can make you some toast and you may eat it in front of the telly.”

“I want to eat here with the angels.” The boy crossed his arms and looked up at her. He cocked his head. “Can you make him talk?”

Aziraphale winced. "It might have been a bad idea to phrase it like that, dear boy."

Newt stood up and lifted Heresy in his arms, spinning him around and making him giggle. "Come on. Breakfast! The _angels_ won't run away, I promise."

“If you harm a hair on his head,” Anathema hissed to Crowley under her breath, turning away from the others, “I will hurl your pretty ass back to Hell faster than you can say ‘Not an angel’.”

“Please, children!” Madame Tracy cut in. “Let’s not fight. We are all on the same side here.”

"Absolutely," Aziraphale said, patting Anathema's hand. "And Crowley would never hurt a child."

“Right,” Anathema said, pointedly ignoring Crowley fidgeting with a disappointingly blunt fork, “so we need to find something that Heaven will want desperately enough to restore Aziraphale’s powers, something Hell wants enough to give up an Angel they've taken hostage, and then figure out a way to make them agree to even talk to us in the first place. Sounds simple enough…”

“How is that simple?” Anpiel interrupted. “You know Heaven doesn’t want anything to do with Aziraphale, except for accepting his surrender, perhaps. And Hell…”

"I don't think Anathema meant it, my dear," Aziraphale said. "Sometimes humans say the opposite of what they mean to give their words more power… But you are right. If they know Crowley and I are involved with this plan, they won't be willing to listen. We probably need some sort of external negotiator…"

“Pa!!!” Heresy burst into the kitchen, brandishing a sleek tablet. “Nan is being weird again!”

"I swear I didn't touch it," Newt said immediately.

“I know, honey,” Anathema said, taking the device from their son. “What is it this time?”

“She is moving her lips.” Heresy mimicked what he described. “But the words don’t come until afterwards! Make her stop doing that. It’s scary.”

Anathema laughed. “That’s not Nan’s fault. It’s just the wifi being a bit sketchy, because…”

“ _Oh!_ ” 

“Black Angel!” Heresy beamed up at his mother’s perplexed expression. “You _can_ talk!”

Crowley ignored him. “I know the _perfect_ candidates…”


	32. All God's People

“So what iz thiz about?” Beelzebub glared at the screen. “Why did you insizt on meeting like thizzz?”

"We have…" Gabriel tilted his head as if he were making a weighty admission, "... a problem."

“Only one?” Beelzebub flashed a rare but brief smile.

Gabriel's mouth started moving, but it took several seconds before the sound followed. "You have one of our angels."

“Yezzz, I know. Your angel was poking around down here. And not alone, I might add. What iz going on up there?”

"We had a few mild disruptions of the peace," Gabriel replied. "In fact, she's not _really_ an angel. Her body had been stolen. We're still…" The screen froze a few seconds before he could finish his sentence. "... figuring out who did it." 

“Are you suggesting that one of my demonz did it? That we were the ones to break the truce first?” Beelzebub leaned closer to the screen, sneering.

"I'm not suggesting anything," Gabriel said quickly—or as quickly as the lag allowed. "In fact, I'm hoping to avoid any escalating conflicts." The frown on his face didn't quite seem to match his serious tone.

“Neither of uz wantz a fight right now,” Beelzebub agreed with a tired huff. “So what do you suggezt we do?”

"Do you think you could see your way into delivering the angel to a neutral agent?"

“Oh? You don’t think that thiz is a perfect opportunity for uzzz to have a little… meeting?” Ze glanced quickly over zir shoulder before focusing back on the screen.

"A meeting? Why would we meet?" Gabriel asked.

“Oh, you know…” Ze raised an eyebrow. “It’z been a while…”

"Uh… I suppose you're right." The archangel sounded flustered. "But still… We don't want anyone to start _talking_ … A neutral party really would be the safer option."

Ze pouted. “Fine... But then you need to give me something. I can’t just hand the thing over to you. It would look bad.”

"And I'm guessing you can't tell them I'll make it up to you later, huh?"

“No!” The fly’s wings began buzzing menacingly.

Gabriel sighed. "Isn't it enough that I'm not telling anyone about…" He gestured between them.

“What!?” Beelzebub jumped to zir feet so abruptly that zir heavy wooden chair toppled to the floor with a resounding crash.

"I mean, imagine what would happen if Satan himself heard that you're having an affair with an angel. An archangel, no less. What if you'd lose your title, my Prince?"

There was a long silence where ze did not look up at the screen. Then ze hissed: “Fine! Where do you want uz to bring it?”

…

"We did it." Aziraphale took off his headset, not looking quite as jubilant as their success warranted.

“We sure did.” Crowley said, leaning back in the desk chair. “Though it was not easy making Old B sound in control with the way ze was jumping all over the place. What did you say to zir?”

"Ze wanted something in return for the body. So… I threatened to tell Hell about zir liaison with Gabriel…" Aziraphale bit his lip, obviously conflicted. "What if I ruined their relationship?"

Crowley snorted, but Anathema quickly cut him off. “That’s going to be awkward. We told Gabriel that ze needed him to hand over your powers because Crowley was blackmailing zir.”

“With that specific information,” Crowley added. “Thank you for slipping me the note. That really turned things around. How could Gabriel resist coming to the rescue of his beloved? Ow!”

Anathema winced at the pinch she had given her own arm.

"So… Now we wait?" Aziraphale asked.

“Well, we—” Crowley began but was cut off by the door slamming open, making them both jump.

“I want my screen back!” Heresy wailed. “Horrible Histories begins!”

"Heresy!" Newt came running after the child and scooped him up, sending an expression of pure alarm to Anathema and Aziraphale. "I'm so sorry. I hope you're finished…"

“Don’t worry, darling,” Anathema said, handing the tablet over to her squirming offspring. “We managed to wrap it up in time. Now it’s your turn.”

Newt nodded and straightened up in a visible attempt to shake off some nervousness. "I won't let you down. I hope."

…

The canopy of the trees, while still retaining a hint of the delicate green of early spring, was filling in nicely above, casting dappled shadows over the wilting beds of daffodils and a few budding tulips. Most people were still wearing light jackets or coats, but the trio sitting on the bench next to the Traitor-Lilies—as the locals had taken to calling the small bed of surprisingly resilient calla lilies—stood out. The young witch sitting in the middle of the bench was wearing a dark dress that looked oddly old-fashioned, while the angel on her right had exchanged his tatty robes for the usual layers of beige, soft blue and tartan. The other angel, sitting at the left end of the bench, looked decidedly uncomfortable in her borrowed body and kept tugging on the thin jacket and tight trousers.

They were sitting in silence, the woman checking her watch often. Suddenly, she jumped to her feet, quickly followed by the blond angel. As her husband approached them, he kept glancing back over his shoulder, as if he was afraid someone might be following him. 

He handed the bottle over to the angel, and the witch made an aborted move to hug him. The not-demon finally stood and pushed her way past the others, hurrying towards the beautiful antique car that had pulled up to the nearest gate. She ignored the elderly couple getting out, pushing the man aside to reach for the body that lay slumped in the backseat.

The witch caught up with her and, after a brief conversation, they joined hands and the witch reached into the car too.

The three bodies connected and time came to a halt as the souls struggled to sort themselves out.

A few words were exchanged and then four of them took off: the elderly couple towards Victoria Station, the young witch and her husband, arms around each other, back through the park.

Only the demon and angel remained standing by the car, both of them looking at the flask. They exchanged a smile and a tender look and then the angel opened the flask and emptied it in one long swig. He grimaced and then held up his hand. Suddenly, he was holding a succulent with pink flowers in a small, white pot. He handed it to the demon and they shared a long embrace.

Then they joined the second angel in the car.

As they drove away, for the second time ever, a nightingale broke into song in Berkeley Square.


	33. Epilogue: These Are the Days of Our Lives

The ride back to the bookshop was… awkward. Crowley was finally back behind the wheel of his beloved Bentley, Aziraphale by his side, but in the backseat sat a disgruntled Anpiel, letting out a steady stream of complaints about the condition of her body and how first Crowley and then Hell had been treating it. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. He, too, had felt rather out of sorts being returned to his own familiar form after so long in other bodies. 

Nevertheless, he was severely tempted to curse her for the gravest of crimes: ruining the mood.

When the car finally stopped, Crowley gave Anpiel the keys to his flat, with the strict understanding that she would not be changing anything and could only stay there until she had either patched things up with Heaven or found alternative accommodations. The sole reason he had agreed to let the Bentley take her there was to get her out of their hair. Especially his. 

He ran a hand through his poor mistreated locks. It was going to take a while to recover from her reign of terror, but he could not maintain even the smallest of scowls as the door to the shop closed behind him and Aziraphale.They were finally, dared he say it, _blessedly_ alone.

He had imagined it so many times throughout the endless days spent in Heaven, watching his angel through borrowed eyes and in the darkness of his cell in Hell. Only while sharing Anathema’s body had he been too distracted by their planning to linger on this hope. Perhaps that was why, when he stood there at last, Aziraphale within easy reach, his to wrap up in his arms, to cling to, to kiss—he froze. 

He couldn’t move and just stared into his angel’s eyes while his mouth moved feebly, trying to form words he could not find.

Crowley would not, until the end of time, be able to truthfully declare which of them broke the spell. Maybe Aziraphale reached for him. Maybe Crowley had somehow regained control of his body. He didn’t know. He only knew that somehow, finally, their lips touched and the world ended.

Okay, not really, but it might as well have. He would not have batted an eye had anyone told him that this one kiss was, in fact, the culmination of God’s ineffable plan. That all of creation had spent the past six millennia moving towards this one fixed point.

But as their lips parted, he found the shop still standing around them, the world still moving outside its windows. Aziraphale still beaming up at him, though looking slightly out of breath.

"Well then," the angel said, straightening his bowtie a tad smugly. "Would you like some tea?"

Crowley snorted before he could help himself. “No, angel,” he said, reaching up to clasp his hands. “I just want… you…”

"Er… I, er… Right now?" Aziraphale's eyes were comically wide. "I thought maybe we could just… settle down for a while…"

“What? No!!!” Crowley spluttered. “I didn’t mean… _that_ … Just… I have everything I need. Here. With you.” He bit his lip and looked away. He supposed he should have known he’d mess this up. He was a demon. They didn’t do… love…

Aziraphale startled him out of his panicking head by kissing his cheek. "Good. I'd really rather take my time for that other thing, when we get to that."

Crowley cleared his throat and then let go of Aziraphale to gesture at the shop in general. “I didn’t move your books. And I figured out how to find what I needed. It wasn’t easy.”

"You did a wonderful job, my dear." Aziraphale's gaze passed fondly among the books' spines, and then he halted. "Where… Where is _The St James's Cookery Book_?"

“Oh, I…” Crowley’s blood turned to ice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know if I could ever get you back and it felt like a waste to just keep all the books here when there was no one left to appreciate them,and…”

"And…?"

“And I sold it.” Crowley muttered, almost hoping Aziraphale couldn’t hear the words.

"Ah. I see. Just this one, or…?"

“No, a few… But I wrote down the names of the people who bought them. I can track them down for you if you want. I’ll get them back, I promise.”

"My love…" Aziraphale once again managed to completely stop Crowley's train of thought by kissing him. "Don't worry about it. Surely I can buy them again. And even if I can't, I'd much rather be here with you than have you run off to find those books for me anytime soon."

“I’m not going anywhere,” Crowley promised, willing his body to relax again. What was wrong with it, being so erratic and silly? It must have been the time without him to control it. He’d have to get it back in shape.

He’d have to…

He’d have to focus on Aziraphale who was kissing him again. Yes. That was the only thing that mattered.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of our journey! But we aren't done in this universe. Do subscribe to the series, so you won't miss the oneshots we'll soon be adding!
> 
> Thanks to Queen for their titles and lyrics.


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